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THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  COLD 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/childrenofcoldOOschwrich 


THE  CHILDREN 
OF  THE  COLD 


PY 

FREDERICK  SCHWATKA,  1^4^-  (S-^S 

Author  of  "Along  Alaska's  Great  River,"  "  iMmrod  in  the 

North,  or  Hunting  and  Fishing  Adventures  in 

the  Arctic  Regions,"  etc.,  etc. 


NEW  EDITION 


EDUCATIONAL  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

BOSTON 

Nkw.York        Chicago        San  Francisco 


.S3 


I  '4 


Copyrighted,  1895,  by 
THE    CASSELL  PUBLISHING  CO. 


Copyrighted,  1899,  ^^' 
THE  EDUCATIONAL  PUBLISHING  CO. 


Bancroft  Ubruy 


CONTENTS, 


CHAPTER  I. 

WHERE  AND  HOW  THEY  LIVE,      -  -  -  -  g 

CHAPTER  n. 

HOW  THEIR  HOUSES  ARE  BUILT,  -  -  -  2  7 

CHAPTER  HI. 

LITTLE  BOREAS'S  PLAYTHINGS,     -  -  -  -  44 

CHAPTER  IV. 

ESKIMO  SLEDS COASIING,  -  -  •  -  60 

CHAPTER  V. 

FEEDING  THE  DOGS, 80 

CHAPTER  VI. 

SOME  OUTDOOR  SPORTS, 93 

CHAPTER  VII. 

ESKIMO  CANDY, -Ill 


VI  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER   VIII. 

ATHLETIC  AMUSEMENTS,  -  -  •  -       Il6 

CHAPTER   IX. 

ESKIMO  PATIENCE,  •  -  -  -  -       I32 

CHAPTER   X. 

LITTLE  BOREAS'S  WORK,  -  -  -  -      I42 

CHAPTER   XI. 

SEAL  HUNTING,       -  -  -  -  -  -      154 

CHAPTER  XII. 

FISHING,  • 160 

CHAPTER   XIII. 

HOW  THEIR  CLOTHES  ARE  MADE,     -  -  -       171 

CHAPTER   XIV. 

FOUR  ESKIMO  CHILDREN,  -  -  -  "175 

CHAPTER   XV. 

HOW  WE  PASSED  THE  WINTER,  -  *  -      202 


CHAPTER   I. 


WHERE    AND    HOW    THEY    LIVE. 

,  A  WAY  up  near  the  North  Pole,  In  that 
-^  ^  very  coldest  portion  of  the  earth's 
surface  known  as  the  Arctic  Regions ; 
where  the  sun  can  never  get  very  high 
above  the  horizon,  although  for  a  part  of 
the  year  It  does  shine  all  day  and  nearly 
all  night ;  where  for  the  rest  of  the  year 
It  scarcely  shines  at  all,  and  where,  there- 
fore, the  climate  Is  dreary,  cold,  and 
cheerless  the  whole  year  round,  there  live 
a  great  many  people — men  and  women, 


lO  THE   CHILDREN  OF   7HE   COLD. 

boys  and  girls,  and  little  bits  of  babies. 
And,  though  to  us  their  country  seems 
about  the  most  dismal  part  of  the  world 
it  is  possible  to  find,  yet  they  really  are 
the  most  happy,  cheerful,  and  merry 
people  on  the  globe,  hardly  thinking  of 
the  morrow,  and  spending  the  present  as 
pleasantly  as  possible. 

These  cheerful  people,  in  their  cheer- 
less country  of  ice  and  snow,  must,  like 
all  of  us,  at  an  early  time  of  their  life  have 
been  babies,  and  to  describe  these  Arctic 
babies  is  the  main  object  of  this  book — to 
tell  the  boys  and  girls  what  kind  of  toys 
and  pleasures  and  picnics  and  all  sorts  of 
fun  may  be  had  where  you  would  hardly 
think  any  could  be  had  at  all  ;  also, 
some  of  the  discomforts  of  living  in 
this  most  uncomfortable  country. 

Right  near  the  pole,  where  day  and 


WHERE  AND  BOW  THEY  LIVE.  n 

night  ar^  five  or  six  months  long,  and 
where  it  is  so  very,  very  cold,  none  of 
these  people  live,  as  there  are  no  animals 
for  them  to  kill  and  live  upon  ;  but 
around  about  the  outer  edge  of  this  re- 
gion— that  is,  in  the  Arctic  circle,  and 
sometimes  far  back  along  the  sea-coast — 
the  greater  part  of  them  are  to  be  found. 

All  over  Arctic  America,  as  you  will 
see  it  in  your  geography,  these  people 
are  of  one  kind,  speaking  nearly  the  same 
language,  and  very  much  alike  in  other 
respects.  They  are  called  the  Eskimo  ; 
or,  as  the  name  is  sometimes  spelled, 
Esquimaux,  All  over  Arctic  Europe  and 
Asia  (looking  again  at  your  geography), 
there  are  scattered  many  tribes  of  these 
people,  speaking  different  languages,  and 
differing  in  many  other  respects. 

As  I  lived  for  a  time  among  the  former, 


,2  ThE   CHILDREN  OF    THE  COLD. 

the  Eskimo,  my  descriptions  will  apply 
only  to  that  nation,  and  only  to  those 
parts  which  I  visited ;  for  when  you 
looked  at  your  geography,  if  you  did 
so  carefully,  you  must  have  seen  that 
the  Arctic  part  of  North  America  was 
an  immense  tract  of  land  reaching  from 
the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  across  the 
widest  part  of  America,  and  that  it 
would  take  a  single  traveler  almost  a 
long  life-time  to  see  all  the  Eskimo  and 
study  carefully  their  homes,  habits,  and 
customs.  I  did  not  merely  live  In  a  ship 
or  a  tent  or  house  of  my  own  alongside 
the  tents  and  huts  of  the  natives,  and 
from  there  occasionally  visit  them ;  but 
I,  with  my  little  party  of  three  other 
white  men,  lived  for  two  years  in  Eskimo 
tents  and  huts,  so  that  we  made  these 
savages'  homes  our  own. 


WHERE  AND  HOW  THEY  LIVE. 


n 


After  a  while,  these  Eskimo  began  to 
consider  us  a  part  of  their  own  tribe, 
gave  us  Eskimo  names,  by  which  we  were 
known  among  the  tribe,  invited  us  to 
participate  In  their  games  and  amuse- 
ments, and  In  cases  of  direst  want,  when 
their  superstitions  drove  them  to  their 
singular  rites  and  ceremonies  to  avert  the 
threatened  dangers,  they  even  asked  us 
to  join  in  using  our  mysterious  Influence. 
We  four  white  men  did  not  live  In  the 
same  snow-hut  all  the  time,  but  for  many 
months  were  living  apart  from  each  other 
in  the  different  snow  houses  of  the  natives 
themselves,  and  this  did  much  to  make 
the  natives  feel  kindly  toward  us.  We 
made  sledge  journeys  among  them  away 
from  our  home  for  many  months,  taking 
their  best  hunters  with  us,  and  found 
many  other  natives  who  had  never  before 


14  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE    COLD. 

seen  any  white  men ;  and  when  there 
seemed  to  be  any  danger  from  the  wily 
tricks  and  stratagems  of  these  wilder 
savages,  the  members  of  the  tribe  with 
which  we  lived  would,  as  far  as  they 
could,  tell  us  all  about  it  and  consult  with 
us  as  to  defense,  just  as  if  we  were  their 
brothers,  and  not  white  men,  wholly  dif- 
ferent from  them,  while  the  ones  they 
were  thus  plotting  against  were  Eskimo, 
like  themselves. 

Their  little  children,  too,  played  with 
us  and  around  us,  just  as  if  our  faces 
were  a  few  shades  darker  and  we  were 
truly  their  own  kind  ;  and  as  it  is  of  them 
you  naturally  desire  to  hear,  you  can  see 
that  we  were  in  a  position  to  find  out  by 
long  experience  what  can  be  told  you 
about  them. 

As  soon   as  little   Boreas  (as  we  shall 


WHERE  AND  HOW   THEY  LIVE.  15 

call  the  Eskimo  baby)  is  born,  and  indeed 
until  he  is  able  to  walk,  he  is  always  to 
be  found  on  his  mother's  back  when  she 
is  out  of  doors  or  making  visits  to  other 
hodses.  All  of  the  Eskimo's  clothes  are 
made  of  reindeer  skins,  so  nicely  dressed 
that  they  are  as  soft  and  limber  as  velvet, 
and  warmer  than  any  clothes  you  have 
ever  seen  anywhere,  even  than  the  nice, 
warm  sealskin  sacks  and  muffs  that 
American  ladies  wear  in  winter.  They 
have  two  suits  of  this  reindeer  clothing, 
completely  covering  them  :  the  inner  suit 
with  the  reindeer's  fur  turned  toward  the 
body,  and  the  outer  one  with  the  hair 
outside  like  a  sealskin  sack.  The 
coats  have  hoods  sewed  tightly  on  their 
collars,  so  that  when  they  are  put  on, 
only  the  eyes,  nose  and  mouth  are 
exposed  to  the  cold. 


1 6  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

When  Boreas's  mother  makes  the  hood 
for  her  reindeer  suit,  she  stretches  it  into 
a  long  sack  or  bag,  that  hangs  down 
and  is  supported  by  her  shoulders,  and 
this  bag  of  reindeer's  skin  is  little 
Boreas's  cradle  and  home,  where  he  lives 
until  he  knows  how  to  walk,  when  he  gets 
his  own  first  suit  of  clothing.  When 
Boreas  gets  very  cold,  as  when  he  is  out 
of  doors  in  an  Arctic  winter's  day  with 
the  bitter,  cold  wind  blowing — when  he 
gets  so  very  cold  that  he  commences  cry- 
ing about  it — his  mother  will  take  him 
out  of  the  bag  and  put  him  on  her  back 
under  both  her  coats,  where  he  will  be 
held  by  a  lot  of  sealskin  strings  passing 
back  and  forth  under  him  and  around  his 
mother's  shoulders  over  her  dress  ;  and 
there  he  will  be  very  warm,  directly 
against  her  body  and  under  her  two  fur 


WHERE  AND  HOW  THEY  LIVE. 


17 


coats,  besides  the  four  thicknesses  of  the 
hood  wherein  he  was  riding  before. 

This,  as   I   have  already  said,  is  while 
little  Boreas  is  out-of-doors  or  his  mother 


LITTLE  BOREAS   AND   HIS   MOTHER. 

is  making  a  social  visit.  When  at  his 
own  home,  in  order  not  to  trouble  his 
mother  while  she  is  sewing  or  cooking  or 
doing  such  other  work,  the  little  baby  is 
allowed  to    roll   around    almost   without 


i8 


THE   CHILDREN  OF    THE   COLD. 


clothing,  among  the  reindeer  skins  that 
make  the  bed,  where  it  amuses  itself  with 
any  thing  it  can  lay  its  hands  on,  from  a 
hatchet  to  a  snow-stick.  This  stick  is 
much  like  a  policeman's  club,  and  is  used 
for  knocking  snow  off  of  the  reindeer 
clothes ;  for  when  the  Eskimo  come  in- 


AN    ESKIMO    LAMP. 


doors,  they  all  take  off  their  outside  suit 
and  beat  it  with  this  stick,  to  rid  it  of  the 
snow  that  covers  them. 

You  doubtless  think  little  Boreas 
should  have  a  nice  time  rolling  around  to 
his  heart's  content  on  the  soft,  warm  rein- 
deer  skins ;  but  when   I   tell  you    more 


WHERE  AND  HOW   7 HEY  LIVE.  ig 

about  his  little  home,  you  may  not  then 
think  so.  It  is  so  cold  in  the  Arctic 
country  in  the  winter  that  no  timber  can 
grow  at  all,  just  as  it  never  grows  on  the 
cold  summits  of  the  very  high  snow-cov- 
ered mountains.  Sometimes  the  Eskimo, 
by  trading  with  the  whale-ships,  get  wood 
enough  to  make  the  sledges  or  the  spear- 
handles  with  which  they  kill  seal  and 
,  walrus,  but  not  enough  to  build  houses. 
Sometimes  they  pick  up  a  little  on  the 
bleak  sea-beach,  where  the  ocean  currents 
have  brought  It  for  many  hundreds  of 
miles  from  warmer  climates  ;  but  they 
have  no  tools,  and  they  do  not  know  how 
to  cut  the  wood  into  boards  If  they  had 
the  tools.  Never  having  seen  any  timber 
growing  as  in  our  woods  and  forests,  they 
have  to  make  guesses  where  It  comes 
from.     One  tribe  I  met  thought  the  logs 


20  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE  COLD. 

they  occasionally  found,  grew  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  sea,  and  when  the  tree  reached 
nearly  to  the  surface  of  the  water,  its  top 
became  caught  and  frozen  in  the  thick 
ice,  and  in  the  summer,  when  the  ice 
broke  up,  the  tree  was  pulled  up  by  the 
roots  and  floated  to  the  nearest  shore. 

Now,  as  little  Boreas's  father  has 
neither  wood  nor  mortar  to  use  on  the 
stones,  he  is  rather  at  a  loss,  you  think, 
for  building  material.  But,  no.  He 
takes  the  very  last  thing  you  would  think 
of  choosing  to  make  a  house  from  in  a 
cold  winter.  TJiat  is^  he  builds  his  win- 
ter home  of  snow, 

*'  But  won't  the  snow  melt  and  the 
house  tumble  in?"  you  will  ask.  Of 
course  it  will,  if  you  get  it  warmer  than 
just  the  coldness  at  which  water  freezes  ; 
but  during  the  greater  part  of  the  year  it 


WHERE  AND  HOW  THEY  LIVE.  2 1 

is  SO  cold  that  the  snow  will  not  melt, 
even  when  the  Eskimo  burn  fire  in  their 
stone  lamps  inside  these  snow  houses; 
so,  by  closely  regulating  the  amount  of 
the  fire,  they  can  just  keep  the  snow  from 
melting.  Their  stone  lamps  look  like 
large  clam-shells,  the  shell  holding  the 
oil,  and  the  fiame  being  built  along 
the  straight,  shallow  edge,  while  the 
wicking  is  the  moss  they  gather  from 
the  rocks.  In  short,  it  must  always  be 
cold  enough  in  their  home  to  freeze. 

So  you  can  see  that  little  Boreas  can 
not  have  such  a  very  nice  time,  and  you 
can't  see  how  in  the  world  he  can  be  al- 
most naked  nearly  all  day  long  when  it  is 
so  cold.  But  such  is  the  fact.  Think  of 
taking  the  baby  of  your  house  out  for  a 
walk  or  a  ride  In  the  park  when  the  leaves 
have  all  fallen,  the  ground  covered  with 


22  THE   CHILDREN   OF   THE   COLD. 

snow,  and  the  Ice  forming  on  the  lake^ 
and  the  little  baby  almost  unclothed  at 
that,  and  then  you  can  Imagine  what  the 
Eskimo  baby  has  to  go  through. 

Yet,  In  spite  of  all  this,  little  Boreas 
really  enjoys  himself.  He  gets  used  to 
the  cold,  and  has  great  fun  frolicking 
around  on  the  reindeer  skins  and  playing 
with  his  toys  ;  and  when  I  have  told  you 
some  other  stories  about  the  cold  these 
little  folks  can  endure,  you  can  understand 
how  they  can  enjoy  themselves  In  the 
snow  huts,  or  igloos,  as  they  call  them, 
when  It  is  only  a  little  colder  than  freez- 
ing. 

At  times,  the  fire  will  get  too  warm  in 
the  snow  house,  and  then  the  celling  will 
commence  melting — for  you  all  perhaps 
have  learned  at  school  that  when  a  room 
becomes  warmed  it  is  warmer  at  the  ceil- 


WHERE  AND  HOW    THEY  LIVE.  25 

ing  and  cooler  near  the  floor.  So  with 
the  hut  of  snow  ;  it  commences  melting 
at  the  top  because  it  is  warmer  there — 
and  when  two  or  three  drops  of  cold 
water  have  fallen  on  little  Boreas's  bare 
shoulders,  his  father  or  mother  finds  that 
it  is  getting  too  warm,  and  cuts  down  the 
fire. 

When  the  water  commences  dropping, 
the  mother  will  often  take  a  snow-ball 
from  the  floor,  where  it  is  colder  than 
freezing,  and  stick  it  against  the  point 
where  the  water  is  dripping.  There  it 
freezes  fast  and  soaks  up  the  water  just 
like  a  sponge  until  It  becomes  full  ;  and 
then  she  removes  It  and  puts  on  another, 
as  soon  as  it  commences  to  drip  again. 
Sometimes  she  will  forget  to  remove  it, 
and  when  it  gets  soaked  and  heavy  with 
water  and  warm  enoucrh  to  lose  its  freez- 


26  THE   CHILDREN  OF    7  HE   COLD. 

ing  hold,  down  it  comes  !  perhaps  right 
on  Boreas's  bare  back,  where  it  flattens 
out  like  a  slushy  pancake — or  into  his 
face,  as  it  once  served  me.  For  one  of 
these  snow-balls  about  the  size  of  my  fist 
fell  plumb  into  a  tin-cup  full  of  soup  just 
as  I  was  about  drinking  from  it,  and 
splashed  half  of  the  soup  in  my  face. 
Once  or  twice  I  have  seen  these  slushy 
snow-balls  fall  down  the  back  of  a  person 
sitting  upon  the  bed  ;  and  when  the  cold 
slush  gets  in  between  the  skin  and  the 
reindeer  coat — well,  you  can  easily  be- 
lieve that  it  does  not  feel  agreeable. 


CHAPTER  II. 

HOW    THEIR    HOUSES    ARE    BUILT. 

TF,  when  you  cut  your  boiled  egg  in 
^  two  at  breakfast  (if  you  are  not  break- 
fasting with  a  French  aristocrat,  who 
never  cuts,  but  only  chips,  his  egg),  and 
have  taken  out  the  meat,  you  will  put 
the  two  shells,  rims  down,  on  the  table, 
you  will  have  a  miniature  representa- 
tion of  a  couple  of  Eskimo  snow  huts 
or  winter  homes.  The  fuller  shell,  or 
big  end  of  the  egg,  will  represent 
an    z£'/oo    during    the    coldest    weather. 


28 


THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 


when  the  snow  is  frozen  hard  and 
firm,  and  it  can  be  built  flat  without 
danger  of  falling  in,  and  can  thus  be 
made  much  more  comfortable.  The 
pointed  shell,  or  little  end  of  the  ^gg, 
will  represent  an  igloo,  as  it  must  be  built 
in  the  early  fall   or  late  in    the   spring, 


DIAGRAM    OF   THE  PLAN   OF  THE  ESKIMO   SNOW-HUT, 
OR   IGLOO. 

when  it  is  getting  warm  and  the  igloo  is 
liable  to  melt  and  tumble  in. 

If  through  a  hole  in  the  top  you  pour 
your  model  about  one-third  full  of  water 
and  plaster  of  Paris,  mixed,  or  melted 
wax,  or  something  that  will  harden,  and 
when  it  has  hardened,  if  you  take  a  knife 


HOW   THEIR  HOUSES  ARE  BUILT. 


31 


and  cut  down  through  it  so  as  to  take  off 
about  a  third,  what  is  left  will  represent 
the  bed,  as  in  illustration  which,  you  see, 
occupies  nearly  the  whole  of  the  room. 
Curious  as  it  may  seem,  this  bed  is  also 
built  of  snow,  but  enough  reindeer  robes, 
bear  and  musk-ox  skins  are  placed  over 
it  to  keep  the  warmth  of  the  body  from 
melting  the  bed. 

If  with  a  lead-pencil  you  draw  a  con- 
tinuous spiral  line  on  the  egg-shell,  far 
enough  apart  so  that  there  will  be  four 
or  five  lines  from  bottom  to  top  directly 
above  each  other,  and  then  if  you  draw 
lines  about  twice  as  far  apart  as  these 
almost  horizontal  ones,  but  broken  so  as 
to  represent  brick-work,  each  little  block 
that  you  thus  represent  is  a  snow-block 
of  which  the  igloo  is  built.  The  real 
snow-blocks  are    about    three    feet    long, 


32  THl'.    CHILDREN   OF    7'HE    COLD. 

about  a  foot  and  a-half  wide,  and  six 
inches  to  a  foot  thick,  which  would,  of 
course,  make  the  thickness  of  the  igloo 
itself.  A  row  of  these  is  laid  on  the 
ground,  the  long  edge  down,  in  the  shape 
of  a  circle,  and  this  is  continued  around, 
just  as  on  your  egg-shell,  until  the  snow 
house  is  built,  the  last  snow-block,  of 
course,  being  then  perfectly  horizontal. 
They  make  most  of  the  igloos  just  so  high 
that,  when  standing  on  the  floor  in  front 
of  the  bed,  their  heads  will  not  be  bump- 
ing against  the  roof,  although  it  is  hard 
to  tell  just  where  the  house-walls  stop 
and  the  roof  commences.  When  they 
build  their  snow  houses  to  live  in  a  long 
time,  however,  they  make  them  higher 
and  flatter  in  the  roof  than  when  they  are 
to  be  used  for  one  or  two  nights  only ; 
for   it    must    be    remembered    that  their 


NOW    THEIR  HOUSES  ARE  BUILT.         33 

zgloos  in  the  winter  time  serve  them  the 
same  use  as  tents  wherever  they  travel* 
the  smaller  kind  taking  them,  if  they  are 
industrious,  but  about  an  hour  to  build — 
no  one,  not  even  an  Eskimo,  being  able 
to  live  in  a  tent  in  the  coldest  weather  of 
these  polar  regions. 

Just' in  front  of  the  bed,  and  not  much 
higher,  is  th'e  little  door-way,  where  the 
occupants  enter  the  house.  In  order  to 
do  so  they  must  get  down  flat  on  their 
hands  and  knees  and  crawl  in.  To 
prevent  the  snow  from  the  top  of  the 
door-way  brushing  off  and  falling  down 
the  neck  and  back,  each  Eskimo  puts  his 
skin  hood  over  his  head  before  entering, 
and  just  as  soon  as  his  shoulders  are  well 
in  the  house  he  shoves  the  legs  back  and 
begins  to  straighten  up  so  as  to  prevent 
running  his  nose  square  into  the  snow  of 


34  THE   CHILDREN   OF   THE   COLD. 

which  the  bed  is  made.  So  you  will  see 
that  the  igloo  is  lacking  very  much  in  the 
**  elbow  room"  which  the  homes  in 
warmer  climates  have  ;  but,  nevertheless, 
the  lonely  Eskimo  and  his  little  boy 
Boreas  seem  perfectly  happy  with  the 
home  they  have,  and  wonder  how  in  the 
world  any  person  could  wish  for  any 
more.  The  door  for  this  entrance-way 
is  nothing  but  a  big  block  of  snow  stuck 
in  the  little  hole  which  may  be  called  the 
door-way,  and  is  used  as  much  to  keep 
out  the  dogs  as  it  is  to  keep  out  the  cold. 
A  small  igloo  of  snow  is  often  built  in 
front  of  the  door  (as  shown  in  the  picture 
on  page  37),  to  prevent  the  wind  from 
getting  in  easily,  and  this  little  storm 
igloo  is  always  full  of  dogs,  who  crowd  in 
here  to  keep  away  from  the  sharp,  biting 
wind.     The  Eskimo  dogs,  however,  will 


BO IV   THEIR   HOUSES  ARE  BUILT.  35 

sleep  right  out  on  the  hard-frozen  snow 
banks,  if  they  have  plenty  to  eat,  and 
never  seem  to  mind  it,  even  though  the 
ice  on  the  lakes  and  rivers  may  have 
frozen  to  a  thickness  of  six  or  ei^ht  feet. 
And  now,  as  the  Eskimo  dogs  have 
been  mentioned,  you  boys  who  have  a 
favorite  Carlo  or  Nero  at  home  will  wish 
to  know  about  those  Arctic  dogs  ;  ask- 
'  ing  what  I  mean  by  plenty  to  eat,  and 
whether,  like  your  own  favorites,  they 
get  three  meals  a  day  and  any  number 
of  intermediate  lunches.  No  doubt  you 
will  think  that  they  really  should  get 
ever  so  much  more  on  account  of  their 
hard  work  in  pulling  the  sledges,  and  in 
such  a  cold  country.  Yet,  hard  as  it 
may  seem,  the  Eskimo  dog  never  gets 
fed  oftener  than  every  other  day,  and 
generally  about  every  third  day  ;    while- 


36  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

in  times  of  want  and  starvation  in  that 
terrible  country  of  cold,  the  length  of 
time  these  poor  dogs  will  go  without 
food  seems  beyond  belief. 

I  once  had  a  team  of  nineteen  fat 
Eskimo  dogs  that  went  six  or  seven  days 
between  meals  for  three  consecutive  feedr 
ings  before  they  reached  the  journey's 
end  and  good  food  ;  and,  although  they 
all  looked  very  thin,  and  were,  no  doubt, 
very  weak,  none  of  them  died  ;  and  yet 
they  had  been  traveling  and  dragging  a 
heavy  sledge  for  a  great  part  of  the 
time.  Other  travelers  among  the  Eskimo 
have  given  equally  wonderful  accounts  of 
their  powers  of  fasting.  The  Eskimo 
have  many  times  of  want  and  depriva- 
tion, and  then  their  poor  dogs  must 
suffer  very  much.  But  when  they  are 
fed   every  other  day  on  good  fat  walrus 


HOW   THEIR  HOUSES  ARE  BUILT. 


39 


meat,  and  do  not  have  too  much  hard 
work  to  do,  they  will  get  as  fat  and  saucy 
and  playful  as  your  own  dogs  with  three 
meals  a  day.  One  of  the  very  last 
things  you  would  imagine  to  be  good  for 
them  is  the  best  food  they  get  ;  that  is, 
tough  walrus  hide,  about  an  inch  in 
thickness,  and  as  wiry  as  sole-leather. 
Give  your  team  of  dogs  a  good  me-al  of 
this  before  they  start,  take  along  a  light 
supply  of  it  for  them,  and  you  can  be 
gone  a  couple  of  weeks  on  a  trip  ;  when 
you  get  back,  feed  them  up  well,  and 
they  will  be  as  fat  and  strong  as  ever  in  a 
few  days. 

But  to  return  to  the  igloo.  The  blocks 
of  snow  of  which  the  house  is  made  are, 
it  has  been  said,  from  six  inches  to  a  foot 
in  thickness ;  but  after  the  house  is  thus 
made  strong — for  a  heavy  man  can  climb 


40  THE   CHILDREN   OF    THE    COLD. 

or  walk  right  over  it  without  tumbling  it 
in — the  native  architects  throw  a  deep 
bank  of  loose  snow  over  it  all,  burying  it 
in  a  covering  of  snow  from  a  foot  to  three 
feet  thick  ;  so  you  can  see  that  there  is  a 
good  thick  wall  between  little  Boreas 
inside  his  home  and  the  cold  weather 
outside.  This  snow  is  thrown  up  with 
great  wide  shovels  of  wooden  boards, 
dextrously  sewed  together  with  reindeer 
sinew,  and  the  handle  in  the  center  made 
of  a  curved  piece  of  musk-ox  horn. 
The  inner  edge  of  the  shovel,  which 
would  soon  wear  off  digging  in  the  hard, 
frozen  snows  is  protected  by  a  tip  made 
from  the  toughest  part  of  a  reindeer's 
horn.  A  snow-shovel  is  always  carried 
by  the  Eskimo  on  their  travels.  The 
knives  with  which  they  cut  the  blocks  of 
snow  are  like  great  long-bladed  butcher- 


HOW   THEIR  HOUSES  ARE  BUILT. 


41 


knives,  with  handles  of  wood  long 
enough  to  be  grasped  easily  and  firmly 
with  both  hands.     Sometimes  they  use  a 


AN   ESKIMO    KNIFE    AND   SNOW  SHOVEL. 

saw  where  they  can  get  it  by  trading  with 
the  sailors  who  come  into  certain  parts 
of  their  seas  to  catch  whales,  walrus  and 
seals. 

But  will  not    every  one   under  such  a 


42  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

thick  house  of  snow,  with  the  snow-door 
tightly  fastened  up  to  keep  out  the  dogs 
and  cold,  smother  to  death  for  want  of 
fresh  air?  And  if  they  do  not  smother, 
where  does  the  fresh  air  come  from  ? 
The  frozen  snow  is  about  as  porous 
as  white  sugar,  and  all  boys  and  girls 
know  they  can  draw  in  air  through  a 
lump  of  it,  or,  if  they  do  not  know  it, 
they  can  try  the  experiment.  Well,  in 
the  same  way,  the  cold  air  from  the  out- 
side passes  very  slowly  through  the  thick 
snow  wall  as  fast  as  the  people  inside  use 
up  that  in  the  igloo  ;  not  so  fast  but  that 
they  can  warm  it  with  their  little  stone 
lamps  as  it  comes  in,  unless  there  is  a 
strong  gale  of  wind  on  the  outside  to 
blow  it  through.  I  was  at  one  time  in  a 
very  thick  igloo,  probably  four  feet 
through,  but  the  snow  was  very  hard  and 


HOW   THEIR  HOUSES  ARE   BUILT.  43 

sandy,  and  would  not  pack  down  well,  and 
as  there  was  a  very  heavy  wind  blowing 
at  the  time,  the  igloo  was  so  cold  that  we 
all  had  to  go  to  bed  under  the  thick  rein- 
deer robes  to  keep  warm.  Holding  a 
burning  candle  near  the  wall  of  snow  on 
the  side  from  which  the  gale  was  coming, 
the  flame  was  bent  over  nearly  one-third 
or  half  way  toward  the  center  of  the 
igloo. 

If  the  zgloo  becomes  very  warm  inside 
by  the  lamp's  using  up  too  much  of  the 
air,  the  heat  ascends  to  the  top  and  soon 
cuts  its  way  through  the  soft  snow  in  the 
chinks  of  the  snow-blocks,  and  these 
little  chimneys  soon  afford  a  sufficient 
amount  of  fresh  air.  If  they  give  too 
much,  they  are  ''  chinked  up "  with  a 
handful  of  snow  taken  from  the  front  of 
the  snow  bed. 


CHAPTER    III. 

LITTLE    BOREAS'S    PLAYTHINGS. 

\TOW  that  you  know  all  about  little 
-''  ^  Boreas's  home,  let  us  find  out  what 
he  has  been  doing.  We  left  him  rolling 
about  on  the  reindeer  skins  of  the  snow 
bed,  in  a  house  built  of  snow,  where  it 
must  nearly  always  be  below  freezing 
to  prevent  the  house  from  melting  down. 
Well,  as  the  Eskimo  must  sometime  be 
babies,  so  the  dogs  must  at  sometime  be 
puppies,  and  the  puppies  are  allowed 
inside  the   igloo  on  the  bed,  where  they 


LITTLE  BOREAS' S  PL  A  YTHLNGS.  45 

are  the  favorite  playthings  of  the  young 
heir.  His  mother  makes  him  a  number 
of  doll  dog-harnesses  for  the  puppies, 
fixes  him  up  a  dog-whip  almost  like  his 
father's,  and  then  he  amuses  himself 
harnessing  them,  hitching  them  to  a 
hatchet,  the  water-bucket,  or  any  object 
that  is  at  hand,  and  driving  them  around 
in  the  igloo  and  storm  igloo,  or  out 
of  doors,  when  the  weather  is  very 
pleasant. 

By  this  time,  of  course,  little  Boreas 
is  able  to  walk,  and  he  has  a  nice  suit  of 
clothes  for  outdoor  wear,  made  of  the 
softest  skins  of  the  reindeer  fawns, 
trimmed  with  rabbit  and  eider-duck  skin. 
As  soon  as  the  puppies  get  a  little 
bigger,  the  larger  boys  take  them  in 
hand,  and  by  the  time  they  are  old 
enough    to   be   used    for    work    in    the 


46  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

sledges,  they  are  almost  well-trained 
dogs  without  knowing  just  when  their 
schooling  commenced. 

And  so  with  little  Boreas;  when  he 
gets  older  he  takes  the  dogs  his  younger 
brother  finds  unmanageable  and  trains 
them,  and  by  the  time  he  is  a  young  man, 
he  is  a  good  dog-driver,  and  knows  how 
to  manage  a  sledge  under  all  circum- 
stances. This  is  the  hardest  thing  that 
an  Eskimo  has  to  learn.  I  have  known 
white  men  to  equal  them  in  rowing  in 
their  little  seal-skin  canoes  ;  I  have  seen' 
white  men  build  good  igloos ;  but  I  have 
never  seen  a  white  man  who  was  a  good 
dog-driver ;  and  the  Eskimo  told  me  that 
they  had  never  seen  such  an  one  either. 
When  they  drive  their  dogs,  it  is  in 
the  shape  of  a  letter  V,  the  foremost  dog 
being  at  the  converging   point,  and  the 


AN    ESKIMO    TEAM    OF    DOGS. 


LI  TTLE  BORE  A  S '  S  FLA  V  THINGS.  49 

harness  traces  running  back  in  V-shape 
to  the  sledge,  as  shown  in  the  accom- 
panying sketch.  The  forward  dog  is 
called  the  ''  leader,"  or  ''  chief,"  and  in 
trading  dogs,  a  "  leader  "  is  worth  two 
good  followers,  or  ordinary  workers. 
The  Eskimo  dog-driver  manages  the 
leader  wholly  by  the  voice,  making  him 
stop,  go  ahead,  to  the  right,  or  to  the 
left,  as  he  may  speak  to  him  ;  and  as  he 
acts,  so  do  the  others,  who  soon  learn  to 
watch  him  closely,  and  strangest  of  all, 
to  obey  him  even  after  they  are  unhar- 
nessed, although  *'  the  leader  "  may  not 
be  one  of  the  largest  and  strongest  dogs 
in  the  team. 

The  Eskimo  children  have  but  few 
toys,  and  these  are  only  of  the  rud- 
est kind.  Yet  it  is  surprising  to  see 
the  amount  of  enjoyment  they  get  from 


5©  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

these    trifling   affairs,  so    easily  are  the} 

amused. 

One  of  the  most  common  toys  that  I 

found  in  use  among  them  was  called  noo- 

glook-took     or    noo-glook-tahk,    or,     as    it 

might  be  called  in  our  language,    "  Pin 

» 
and  Cup-ball."    On  page  53  is  seen  an  end 

and  side  view  of  the  toy.  It  consists  of 
two  pieces,  generally  of  walrus  ivory, 
united  by  a  string  of  reindeer  sinew 
about  six  inches  long.  The  ivory  or 
wooden  pin  is  about  as  long  as  the  fore- 
finger, and  its  smaller  end  is  sharpened 
to  about  the  size  of  a  knitting-needle. 
One  end  of  the  ivory  "cup-ball"  is  bored 
as  full  of  holes  as  possible,  and  the 
object  of  the  game  is  simply  to  impale 
the  "cup-ball"  on  the  pin  by  thrusting 
the  latter  in  one  of  the  holes.  This  is 
done,   as   shown    in    the    illustration,   by 


LITTLE  BOREAS' S  PLA  Y THINGS. 


53 


swinging   the   *' cup-ball"  backward    and 
forward  once  or  twice  and  then  bringing 


PIN  AND  CUP-BALL. 

it  around  with  a  gentle  sweep,  the  end 
containing  the  holes  being  turned  toward 
the  pin. 

Simple  as  this  little  toy  is,  it  requires 
considerable  dexterity  and  skill  to  make 
the  run  of  a  number  of  successful  points, 
which  is  often  accomplished  by  a  little 
Eskimo.  Sometimes  he  will  swing  it 
completely  around  two  or  three  times, 
alternating  on  different  sides  of  the 
hand,  and   an  expert    player  will  in  this 


54  THE   CHILDREN  OE   THE   COLD. 

manner  swing  it  so  rapidly  that  it  looks 
like  a  revolving  buzz-saw,  and  will  then, 
with  a  sharp  crack,  impale  it  on  the  pin. 
I  remember  that  I  tried  it  once,  and 
brought  the  heavy  ivory  ball  so  sharply 
against  the  end  of  my  thumb-nail  that  it 
stung  for  half  an  hour  after.  The  most 
expert,  however,  will  always  succeed  in 
sticking  it  on  the  pin,  or  in  catv^hing  it 
on  the  pin's  point  between  the  holes,  so 
that  the  ball  will  bounce  back.  A  num- 
ber of  holes  are  also  cut  obliquely  in  the 
sides  of  the  ball,  as  shown  on  page  53,  so 
that  if  it  flies  sidewise  it  may  be  caught 
by  the  pin  through  one  of  these;  and, 
in  fact,  those  who  desire  to  show  unusual 
skill  try  to  impale  the  ball  on  one  of 
these  side  holes.  Should  they  fail  in 
this  endeavor,  the  thumb-nail  or  thumb- 
joint  usually  gets  a  whack  that   makes 


LITTLE  BOREAS' S  PLAYTHINGS.  55 

\ 

the  player  squirm  for  some  time ;  but, 
with  that  indifference  to  bodily  pain  so 
characteristic  of  savages,  they  go  right 
on  with  their  play,  notwithstanding  the 
hurt.  In  a  village  of  half  a  dozen  fami- 
lies, you  will  nearly  always  see  a  group 
of  little  children,  especially  the  girls, 
twirling  away  at  this  game.  As  soon  as 
one  misses  they  pass  it  on  to  the  next, 
the  number  of  successful  catches  show- 
ing who  is  victor  for  that  particular 
round. 

Another  childish  amuse- 
ment is  to  take  one  of  the 
musk-ox    cups,   shown    on 
this  page,  and,  partially  fill- 
ing   it  with  soup  or  stew,     a  musk-ox  cup. 
whirl    it   around    upon    a    board    or    flat 
rock   in  the  center  of  a  group  collected 
to  play  the  game ;  the   person  to  whom 


56  THE  CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

thV  handle  of  the  cup  points  when  it 
has  stopped  turning  is  the  victor,  a»d 
can  appropriate  the  contents  of  the  cup. 
This  game  is  not  so  much  played  by  the 
children  as  by  the  old  women  of  the 
tribe,  and  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  this 
simple  game  is  often  used  by  them  as  a 
means  of  gambling.  When  the  person 
to  whom  the  handle  has  pointed  has 
taken  out  the  article  placed  in  the  cup 
(or  alongside  it,  if  it  be  too  large),  some 
other  article  must  be  placed  in  it  or 
alongside  it,  and  a  brisk  twirl  is  then 
given  it  that  sends  it  spinning  around 
again  for  four  or  ^v^  times  before  it 
settles  to  a  rest  and  the  handle  desig- 
nates the  new  victor.  I  have  said  this 
is  a  kind  of  gambling,  because  the  lucky 
one  often  puts  in  the  musk-ox  horn  cup 
thinors    much   more    valuable    than    are 


LITTLE  BOREAS' S  PL  A  Y  THINGS.  gy 

taken  out,  the  only  idea  of  value  among 
the  Eskimo  being  the  present  necessity 
for  an  article.  A  needle  that  is  wanted 
for  use  immediately  is  more  valuable  in 
their  eyes  than  the  horn  cup  which  holds 
it,  although  it  may  have  taken  them  a 
month  to  make  the  cup. 

The  making  of  these  curious  cups  of 
musk-ox  horn  is  worth  relating.  If  my 
readers  will  look  in  some  well-illustrated 
book  on  natural  history,  they  will  see 
that  the  horn  of  a  musk-ox,  as  it  ap- 
proaches his  head,  commences  to  flatten 
out  in  a  wide  plate  that  is  crimpled 
at  the  edges.  The  Eskimo  take  this 
widened  base  of  the  musk-oxen's  horn, 
boil  it  in  their  kettles,  and  then  scrape 
it  with  knives  to  get  it  into  the  proper 
thickness,  after  which  it  is  bent  in  the 
shape  seen  in  the  illustration,  and  is  then 


58  THE   CHILDREN  OF    THE   COLD. 

left  to  dry.  Little  toy  ones  are  often 
made  for  the  babies  to  play  with,  but  most 
of  them  are  large  and  hold  from  a  pint  to 
a  couple  of  quarts.  The  little  girls 
often  play  with  the  ini-moo-sik,  as  they 
call  this  cup,  the  victor's  winnings  being 
a  little  bit  of  soup  poured  into  the 
cup. 

Another  game,  also  called  noo-glook- 
took,  is  played  by  the  men  and  boys.  A 
piece  of  walrus  ivory,  about  as  long  as 
the  forefinger  and  probably  a  little  larger 
in  diameter,  is  pierced  near  the  middle 
with  holes  running  entirely  through,  and 
as  thickly  placed  as  can  be  without  cut- 
ting it  in  two.  Through  each  extremity 
is  passed  a  stout  sinew  string,  one  end 
of  which  holds  it  fast  to  the  roof  of  the 
igloOy  or  tent,  while  the  other  is  tied  to 
some  heavy  object,  as  a  walrus's  skull  or 


LITTLE  BOREAS' S  PLAYTHINGS.  6l 

a   Stone,    which    acts   as   a   weight    and 
keeps  both  strings  taut. 

Some  member  of  the  playing  party 
then  puts  up  something  as  a  prize — a 
pair  of  walrus's  tusks,  or  perhaps,  a  rein- 
deer coat.  The  players,  who  stand  in  a 
circle  around  the  perforated  ivory  cyl- 
inder, arm  themselves  with  long,  sharp- 
ened sticks,  with  points  small  enough  to 
enter  the  holes  (such  as  seal  spears  with 
the  barbs  removed,  or  iron  ramrods), 
and  are  then  ready  to  commence  ;  and 
as  the  prize-giver  gives  a  sudden  shout 
of  "  Yi  !  Yi ! "  they  all  begin  jabbing  at 
the  holes.  Finally,  some  lucky  fellow 
succeeds  in  thrusting  the  point  of  his 
stick,  spear,  or  ramrod  through  one  of 
the  holes,  when  he  loudly  shouts  ''Yi! 
Yi ! "  and  pushes  the  cylinder  aside  to 
sUow  that  he  is  winner,  and  the  jabbing 


62  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

ceases.  The  victor  now  puts  up  some 
new  prize — a  musk-ox  robe,  or  a  sledge 
dog,  or  a  seal-skin  line — and  the  game 
goes  on  as  usual  until  all  are  ready  to 
stop.  This  is  a  favorite  game  during 
the  long  winter  eveningG  when  food  is 
plentiful  and  every  body  is  merry. 

Many  of  the  little  Eskimo  girls  have 
dolls,  dressed  very  much  like  themselves, 
and  made  entirely  by  their  own  hands. 
The  face  is  of  tanned  seal-skin,  about  as 
black  as  their  own,  two  round  beads 
being  sewed  in  for  eyes  and  a  couple  of 
long  ones  for  nose  and  mouth.  The 
rest  of  the  doll  is  clothed  in  reindeer 
skin,  the  same  as  its  little  mistress  when 
she  is  out  in  the  winter's  cold.  The 
little  Eskimo  girls  do  not  seem  to  take 
as  kindly  to  their  dolls  or  to  derive  as 
much   amusement   from    their    assumed 


LITTLE  BOREAS' S  FLA  Y THINGS. 


63 


care  and  trouble  with  them  as  do  our 
little  girls  of  the  temperate  zone.  They 
seem. to  prefer  other  and  rougher  enjoys 
ments. 

I  give  here  a 
picture  of  a  doll, 
which  was  given 
me  by  a  little 
Eskimo  girl,  in 
return  for  a 
present  that  I 
had  made  her,  as 
is  the  usual  Es- 
kimo custom; 
and  I  think  my 
little  girl  readers,  when  they  see  its 
hideous  countenance,  with  its  glistening 
bead  eyes  and  straight  bead  nose,  and  es- 
pecially the  fierce  grimace  of  its  straight 
bead   mouth,  will  cease  to  wonder  why 


AN    ESKIMO  DOLL, 


64  THE    CHILDREN  OF  THE   COLD. 

their  Eskimo  sisters  do  not  grow  enthu- 
siastic over  their  dolls.  In  fact,  I  can 
readily  imagine  that  most  of  you  will  say 
that  you  don't  see  how  in  the  world  they 
can  like  them  at  all.  The  face  of  the 
doll's  hood  is  trimmed  with  black  fur, 
taken  from  the  back  of  the  reindeer. 
The  rest  of  the  dress,  except  a  little 
trimming  around  the  bottom  of  the  coat, 
is  made  of  white  reindeerfur,  taken  from 
the  flanks  of  the  animal.  The  belt  is  of 
black  seal-skin,  secured  by  a  brass-headed 
tack,  and  the  gloves  of  dark-colored 
reindeerfur.  The  stockings  are  made 
from  the  flat  glossy  fur  taken  from  the 
legs  of  a  young  reindeer,  and  many  of 
these  show  very  creditable  ornamenta- 
tion, considering  the  limited  display  of 
colors  to  be  found  on  a  single  reindeer 
skin.     Over  the  feet  are  drawn  seal-skin 


LITTLE  BOREAS' S  PLA  Y THINGS.  65 

leather  slippers,  securely  fastened  by  a 
%.  puckering  string,  drawn  tight  and  tied. 
These  prevent  the  water  from  getting  at 
the  reindeer  stockings,  the  fur  of  which 
would  be  spoiled  by  the  moisture. 
Except  for  its  hideous  face,  the  Eskimo 
doll,  queer  as  it  looks  to  you,  is  generally 
a  very  good  miniature  representation  of 
the  Eskimo  girl. 


CHAPTER    IV, 

ESKIMO    SLEDS — COASTING. 

'T^HE  number  of  toys  that  represent 
^  articles  of  daily  use,  and  which  are 
so  common  among  us,  such  as  toy  wagons, 
toy  sleds,  toy  railroad  trains,  and  a 
hundred  others,  are  very  limited  among 
the  Eskimo  ;  and  most  of  their  amuse- 
ments, as  I  have  said,  are  confined  to 
their  simple  games.  If  you  should 
wish  to  make  a  toy  sledge,  you,  of 
course,  would  need  to  have  some  wood 
to    build   it    from.      I   have    told    you    of 


ESKIMO    SLEDS— COASTING. 


07 


the  scarcity  of  wood  among  the  Eskimo, 
and  what  funny  notions  some  of  them 
have  about  timber  growing  on  the  bot- 
tom of  the  sea  and  the  drifting  ice  break- 
ing it  off.  Well,  since  wood  is  so  scarce 
that  all  they  can  get  must  be  utilized  to 


A   SLED    MADE    OF   ICE. 


make  their  real  sleds,  harpoon  and  spear 
shafts,  etc.,  leaving  none  or  very  little  to 
be  made  into  toy  representations  of 
these  things,  little  Boreas  looks  else- 
where for  material  for  his  coasting  sled  ; 
and  he  makes  it  of — what  do  you  think  ? 


68  THE   CHILDREN   OF   THE  COLD. 

— the  very  funniest  material  imagina- 
ble— pure  ice,  cut  from  the  nearest  lake 
or  river. 

If  the  sleds  of  ice,  judging  from  the 
one  in  the  illustration,  seem  rather 
bulky,  they  are  much  stronger  than  you 
v»rould  imagine,  and  the  boys  can  coast 
downhill  without  breaking  them,  pro- 
vided the  changes  in  the  slope  are 
gradual  and  there  are  no  stones  or  ice- 
hummocks  protruding  through  the  snow. 
Even  the  grown  people  occasionally  use 
these  primitive  sledges  when  dragging 
their  effects  over  the  smooth  salt-water 
ice  near  the  shore-line  of  the  sea.  The 
snow-knife,  which  I  represented  among 
the  tools  that  are  used  to  build  the  igloo, 
or  native  snow  house,  is  the  implement 
employed  to  cut  or  chip  out  the  ice- 
sledge.     There  is  one  advantage   to    be 


ESKIMO   SLEDS—  CO  A  STING. 


69 


found  in  this  kind  of  a  sledge  that  par- 
tially compensates  for  its  great  weight : 
the  bottom  of  the  sledge-runners  are 
always  perfectly  smooth  and  slippery, 
being  of  pure  ice  ;  and  when  the  sledge 
party  is  on  hard  and  level  snow,  but  little 
pulling  is  required — much  less,  in  fact, 
than  one  would  think — to  make  rapid 
progress  with  such  a  bulky  and  cumber- 
some vehicle. 

So  much  easier  will  a  sledge  pull 
when  it  has  runners  of  ice,  that,  in  the 
Eskimo  country,  the  ordinary  wooden 
sledges  always  have  the  bottoms  of  their 
runners  iced  before  they  start  on  a  day's 
sledge  journey.  First,  the  sledge  runner 
is  shod  with  a  strip  of  bone  cut  from  the 
lower  jaw  of  a  whale  into  a  long,  thin 
piece,  like  a  batten,  or  small  board,  and  a 
trifle    wider   than    the    runner.     This    is 


70  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE    COLD. 

made  fast  to  the  runner  by  thin  thongs 
of  whalebone.  The  sledge  is  thrown  on 
its  back,  the  slats  being  down,  and  the 
native  sledgeman  prepares  the  runners 
for  the  journey,  by  carefully  icing  them. 
He  has  a  small  bucket  or  musk-ox  ladle 
full  of  water,  and,  picking  up  a  piece  of 
snow  about  as  big  as  his  fist,  he  dips  it  in 
the  water  to  render  it  soft  and  slushy, 
and  then  presses  the  slushy  mass  over 
the  bone  shoe  of  the  runner  with  the 
open  palm  of  the  hand  until  it  is  com- 
pletely covered  around  and  along  the 
whole  length  of  both  runners.  The 
open  hand  is  kept  working  backward  and 
forward  over  two  or  three  feet  of  the 
runner's  length,  smoothing  and  leveling 
this  opaque  mass  until  it  is  frozen  hard 
(a  process  which  generally  takes  only 
about    half   a  minute  in  cold  weather! ; 


ESKIMO   SLEDS— CO  A  STI NX}.  71 

then  the  operation  is  renewed  farther  on 
along  the  runner.  The  slushy  snow  being 
completely  frozen,  the  next  operation  is 
to  put  on  the  ice  itself.  This  is  done  by 
the  sledgeman  taking  a  big  mouthful  of 
water  and,  while  he  works  the  palm  of 
his  hand  backward  and  forward  very 
rapidly,  slowly  spurting  the  water  over 
the  frozen,  slushy  snow  ;  this  distributes 
the  water  evenly  and  smoothly,  and  the 
watery  spray  freezes  almost  as  soon  as  it 
strikes  the  cold  runner.  Thus  iced,  it  is 
really  wonderful  how  much  easier  the 
sledge  will  run  than  when  it  is  not  so 
treated.  My  largest  sledge  was  so 
heavy,  even  when  unloaded,  that  I  could 
hardly  turn  it  over  sidewise  ;  yet,  when 
Toolooah,  my  sledgeman,  had  carefully 
iced  it,  I  could  with  one  hand  take  this 
ponderous    affair,    weighing    nearly   half 


72  THE    CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

a  ton,  and  slide  It  backward  and  forward 
a  distance  of  two  or  three  feet  without 
any  unusual  effort.  If  Toolooah  Iced 
the  sledge  on  the  side  of  a  hill,  and, 
thoughtlessly  turning  it  over,  allowed  it 
to  point  downhill,  away  It  w^ould  go  like 
a  frightened  horse,  unless  It  was  stopped. 

Our  worst  luck  would  be  to  have  some 
half-hidden  stone  tear  the  Ice  from  one 
of  the  runners,  when  It  would  drag  as  if 
a  treble-sized  load  had  been  added.  But 
whether  little  Boreas's  sled  be  made  of 
ice  or  wood  he  is  nearly  as  fond  of  a 
sled-ride  as  the  little  boys  In  better  cli- 
mates, and  probably  would  be  found  as 
often  in  the  week  enjoying  one.  If  his 
winter  time  were  as  short ;  but  as  his 
winter  is  three  or  four  times  as  long  as 
ours,  he  grows  tired  of  the  sport,  in  time. 

Most  of  the  sled-rides  of  our  boys  are 


ESKIMO   SLEDS— COASTING.  73 

on  some  of  the  nice  sloping  side-hills, 
while  nearly  all  of  those  of  little  Boreas 
are  behind  well-trained  dogs,  which  carry 
him  along  as  fast  as  a  pair  of  good 
horses.  They  go  *' coasting"  quite  often, 
however,  if  they  can  find  a  good  hill  for 
the  purpose,  which  they  can  not  always 
fihd,  because  most  of  the  tops  and  ridges 
of  the  hills  in  their  country  are  kept 
clear  of  the  snow  by  the  terrible  gales  of 
wind  that  they  have  so  often. 

One  sport  that  amuses  the  Eskimo 
boys  very  much  would  probably  be  called 
in  our  language  '*  reindeer  hunting." 
Having  found  a  long  and  gentle  slope  on 
a  side-hill,  they  place  along  the  bottom 
of  the  hill  a  number  of  reindeer  antlers, 
or,  as  we  sometimes  incorrectly  call 
them,  deer-horns  (for  you  boys  must  not 
forget  that  the  antlers  of  a  deer  are  not 


74  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

horn  at  all,  but  bone.)  These  antlers  of 
the  reindeer  are  stuck  upright  in  the 
snow,  singly  or  in  groups,  in  such  a 
manner  that  a  sled,  when  well  guided, 
can  be  run  between  them  without  knock- 
ing any  of  them  down,  the  number  of 
open  spaces  between  the  groups  being 
equal  to  at  least  the  number  of  sleds. 
The  quantity  of  reindeer  antlers  they  can 
thus  arrange  will,  of  course,  depend  upon 
their  fathers*  success  the  autumn  before 
in  reindeer  hunting  ;  but  there  are  nearly 
always  enough  antlers  to  give  two  or 
three,  and  sometimes  five  or  six,  to  each 
fearless  young  coaster. 

The  boys  with  their  sleds,  numbering 
from  four  to  six  in  a  fair-sized  village, 
gather  on  the  top  of  the  hill,  each  boy 
having  with  him  two  or  three  spears,  or 
a  bow  with  as  many  arrows.     They  start 


REINDEER    HUNTING. 


ESKIMO   SLEDS— COASTING.  77 

together,  each  boy's  object  being  to 
knock  down  as  many  antlers  as  possible 
and  not  be  the  first  to  reach  the  bottom 
of  the  hill.  You  can  see  that,  in  such  a 
case,  the  slower  they  go  when  they  are 
passing  the  antlers  the  better.  They 
must  knock  over  the  antlers  w^ith  their 
spears  or  arrows  only,  as  those  thrown 
down  by  the  sledge  or  with  the  bow  or 
spear  in  the  hand  do  not  count.  They 
begin  to  shoot  their  arrows  and  throw 
their  spears  as  soon  as  they  can  get 
within  effective  shooting  distance  ;  and, 
even  after  they  have  passed  between 
the  rows  of  antlers,  the  more  active  boys 
will  turn  around  on  their  flying  sleds  and 
hurl  back  a  spear  or  arrow  with  sufficient 
force  to  bring  down  an  antler. 

When  all  have  reached  the  bottom  of 
the  hill,  they  return  to  the  row^s  of  ant- 


78 


THE   CHILDREN  OF    THE   COLD. 


lers,  where  each  boy  picks  out  those  he 
has  rightfully  captured,  and  places  them 
in    a    pile    by    themselves.      Then   those 


A   FAVORITE    GAME. 


accidentally  knocked  over  by  the  sledges 
are  again  put  up  and  the  boys  return  for 
another  dash  down  the  hill,  until  all  the 
antlers    have    been     "  speared."       Some- 


ESKIMO   SLEDS— COASTING.  79 

times  there  Is  but  one  antler  left,  and 
when  there  are  five  or  six  contesting 
sleds  the  race  becomes  very  exciting,  for 
then  speed  counts  in  reaching  the  antler 
first.  When  all  are  down,  the  boys 
count  their  winnings,  and  the  victor  is, 
of  course,  the  one  who  has  obtained  the 
greatest  number  of  antlers. 


CHAPTER   V. 

FEEDING     THE      DOGS. 

/^NE  of  the  first  toys  that  little  Bo- 
^  reas  has  is  a  small  bow  of  whalebone 
or  light  wood  ;  and  sitting  on  the  end  of 
the  snow  bed  he  shoots  his  toy  arrows, 
under  the  direction  of  his  father  or 
mother  or  some  one  else  who  cares  to 
play  with  him,  at  something  on  the 
other  side  of  the  snow  house.  This  is 
usually  a  small  piece  of  boiled  meat,  of 
which  he  is  very  fond,  stuck  in  a  crack 
between  the  snow  blocks  ;  and  if  he  hits 


FEEDING    THE  DOGS.  gl 

It,  he  is  entitled  to  eat  it  as  a  reward, 
although  little  Boreas  seldom  needs  such 
encouragement  to  stimulate  him  in  his 
plays,  so  lonesome  and  long  are  the 
dreary  winter  days  in  which  he  lives 
buried  beneath  the  snow. 

These  toy  arrows  are  pointed  with 
pins  but  he  is  also  furnished  with  blunt 
arrows,  and  whenever  some  inquisitive 
dog  pokes  his  head  in  the  igloo  door, 
looking  around  for  a  stray  piece  of  meat 
or  blubber  to  steal,  little  Boreas,  if  he 
shoots  straight,  will  hit  him  upon  the 
nose  or  head  with  one  of  the  blunt 
arrows,  and  the  dog  will  beat  a  hasty 
retreat.  In  this  sense,  the  little  Eskimo 
boy  has  plenty  of  targets  to  shoot  at,  for 
the  igloo  door  is  nearly  always  filled  with 
the  heads  of  two  or  three  dogs  watching 
Boreas's  mother  closely  ;  and  if  she  turns 


82  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

her  head  or  back  for  a  moment,  they  will 
make  a  rush  to  steal  something,  and  to 
get  out  as  soon  as  possible,  before  she 
can  pound  them  over  the  head  with  a 
club  that  she  keeps  for  that  purpose. 

In  these  exciting  raids  of  a  half-dozen 
hungry  dogs,  little  Boreas  is  liable  to 
get,  by  all  odds,  the  worst  of  the  encoun- 
ter. He  is  too  small  to  be  noticed,  and 
the  first  big  dog  that  rushes  by  him 
knocks  him  over ;  the  next  probably 
rolls  him  off  the  bed  to  the  floor ; 
another  upsets  the  lamp  full  of  oil  on 
him  ;  and  while  he  is  reeking  with  oil, 
another  big  dog,  taking  him  for  a  seal- 
skin full  of  blubber,  tries  to  drag  him 
out,  when  his  mother  happens  to  rescue 
him  after  she  has  accidentally  pommeled 
him  two  or  three  times  with  the  club 
with  which  she  is  striking  at  the  dogs  ; 


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FEEDING   THE  DOGS.  85 

and  If  It  were  not  for  his  hideous  yelling 
and  crying,  one  would  hardly  know  what 
he  is,  so  covered  is  he  with  dirt,  grease, 
and  snow.  Thus  the  dogs  occasionally 
have  their  revenge  on  little  Boreas  for 
whacking  them  over  the  nose  with  his 
toy  arrows,  although  this  is  not  their 
object  in  rushing  into  the  igloo,  for  the 
real  cause  is  their  ravenous  hunger. 
The  duty  of  feeding  the  dogs  is  often 
'  intrusted  to  the  boys,  and  it  is  no  easy 
work.  The  most  common  food  for  the 
dogs  is  walrus-skin,  about  an  Inch  to  an 
Inch  and  a  half  thick,  cut  In  strips  each 
about  as  wide  as  it  is  thick,  and  from  a 
foot  to  eighteen  Inches  long.  The  dog 
swallows  one  of  these  strips  as  he  would 
a  snake ;  and  it  is  so  tough  that  when  he 
has  swallowed  about  twelve  pieces,  it  is 
no  great  wonder  that  he  does  not  want 


86  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD, 

any  thing  more  for  two  days.  Some- 
times they  cut  the  food  up  into  little 
pieces  inside  the  igloo,  where  the  dogs 
can  not  trouble  them,  and  then  throw  it 
out  on  the  snow;  but  this  is  not  alto- 
gether a  good  way  ;  for  then  the  little 
dogs  get  it  all  while  the  big  dogs  ar^ 
fighting,  for  these  big  burly  fellows  are 
sure  to  have  an  unnecessary  row  over 
each  feeding.  If  pieces  too  large  to 
swallow  at  a  gulp  are  thrown  out,  the 
large  dogs  get  the  food  ;  and  so,  between 
the  big  dogs  and  the  little  ones,  the 
Eskimo  boys  have  a  hard  time  making 
an  equal  distribution  among  the  animals. 
When  they  are  anxious  for  a  fair 
division,  only  one  dog  at  a  time  is  let 
into  the  igloo,  a  couple  of  boys  standing 
at  the  door  with  sticks  in  their  hands  to 
prevent   the  other   dogs    from    entering. 


FEEDING    THE  DOGS.  89 

When  it  is  pleasant  weather  out  of  doors 
they  often  build  a  semi-circular  wall  three 
or  four  snow  blocks  high,  and  behind 
this  a  couple  of  men  cut  up  the  meat, 
blubber  or  walrus-hide,  and  allow  but  one 
dog  at  a  time  to  come  in,  three  or  four 
boys  with  long  whips,  their  lashes  fifteen 
or  twenty  feet  in  length,  standing  near 
the  open  part  of  the  wall  to  keep  the 
ravenous  pack  from  making  a  raid. 
Once  or  twice  I  have  known  dogs  to 
come  bounding  over  the  high  wall,  crush- 
ing in  the  snow  blocks  on  the  men  who 
were  chopping  the  meat,  and  stealing 
several  pieces  before  the  boys  had 
finished  beating  the  mingled  dogs  and 
men  with  their  whips. 

One  winter  night,  I  remember,  while 
on  our  sledge-journey,  returning  to 
North     Hudson's    Bay,     Toolooah    was 


90 


THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 


feeding  his  dogs  with  no  one  to  help  him. 
He  was  on  his  knees  near  the  igloo  door, 
and  throwing  the  bits  to  the  various 
dogs,  the  heads  of  which  were  crowded 
in  the  entrance,  and  he  was  distributing 
the  food  as  well  as  was  possible  under 
the  circumstances.  One  big  dog,  which 
he  could  not  distinguish  In  the  dark 
entrance,  and  which,  after  it  had  received 
its  share,  had  driven  all  the  other  dogs 
away,  seemed  determined  not  to  leave. 
Toolooah  grew  angry,  seized  his  stick, 
and  rushed  out  after  it  to  settle  matters. 
But  he  came  rushing  back  even  faster 
than  he  went  out,  seized  his  gun  hur- 
riedly, and  as  hastily  was  gone  again. 
Before  we  could  collect  our  thoughts  In 
order,  or  surmise  what  it  all  could  mean, 
a  shot  was  heard  outside,  and  In  a  few 
seconds  more  Toolooah    came  crawling 


FEEDING    THE  I>OGS.  91 

in,  dragging  a  big  wolf  after  him,  Its 
white  fangs  showing  In  Its  black  mouth 
In  a  way  that  made  us  shudder.  This 
was  the  big  dog  Toolooah  had  been  feed- 
ing, but  It  did  not  understand  the  cus- 
toms of  the  Eskimo  does  well  enou^rh  to 
know  that  It  must  stop  eating  when  only 
half  satisfied ;  and  this  Ignorance  cost  it 
its  life. 

The  wolves  of  the  Arctic,  by  the  way, 
are  much  larger,  more  powerful  and 
ferocious  than  those  seen  In  our  country ; 
and  when  pressed  with  hunger,  they  do 
not  hesitate  at  all  to  make  a  meal  off  the 
Eskimo  dogs,  which  they  kill  and  eat  at 
the  very  door  of  the  igloOy  if  not  pre- 
vented In  some  way.  They  are  very 
much  afraid  of  a  bright  light,  however, 
and  they  will  not  come  around  a  village 
or  even  a  single  igloo  so  long  as  they  see 


92  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

even  a  small  flame,  so  that  It  is  generally 
late  in  the  night,  when  the  lamp  Is  burn- 
ing low  or  has  gone  out,  that  they  make 
their  attacks  on  the  dogs,  four  or  five  of 
them  often  killing  or  maiming  two  or 
three  times  as  many  dogs. 


HUNTING   THE   MUSK-OX 


CHAPTER  VL, 

SOME    OUTDOOR    SPORTS. 

n^HE  Eskimo  boys  have  a  way  of  play- 
-*•  ing  at  musk-ox  hunting  that  is  very 
vigorous  and  earnest.  In  April,  1879, 
when  I  was  on  a  sledge-journey  to  King 
William's  Land,  we  came  upon  a  herd  of 
musk-oxen  that  we  had  sighted  the  day 
before,  and  after  running  them  with  dogs 
for  a  mile  or  two,  the  herd  was  sur- 
rounded, or  "brought  to  bay,"  as  hunters 
would  say,  and  a  number  of  the  musk- 
oxen  killed.      Of  course  we   picked  out 


94  THE    CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

some  of  the  handsomest  robes  and  put 
them  on  our  sledges,  and  the  next  day 
we  proceeded  on  our  journey.  During 
that  day  we  passed  several  musk-ox  trails 
in  the  snow,  and  it  was  very  clear  that 
we  were  in  a  country  where  these  ani- 
mals were  qi^ite  numerous.  After  going 
into  camp  that  evening  between  two 
slight  hills  that  sloped  down  to  the  lake, 
where  we  cut  through  the  ice  to  get  our 
fresh  water,  there  was  a  time  when  it 
appeared  that  I  was  the  only  person 
out-of-doors ;  all  of  the  rest  of  the 
people  were  inside  the  igloos,  or  snow 
huts,  that  had  just  been  built,  arrang- 
ing the  reindeer  skins  for  the  bedding 
for  the  night.  Suddenly,  I  noticed  one 
of  our  best  hunting-dogs  (we  had 
forty-two  dogs  altogether)  run  excit- 
edly   over    the    hill,     followed    closely 


SOME   OUTDOOR   SPORTS.  95 

by  the  remainder,  one  after  the  other. 
Then,  to  my  great  surprise,  I  saw  two 
musk-oxen  run  down  the  farther  ridge 
of  the  low  hills  ;  and  the  pack  of  howl- 
ing, barking  dogs  soon  brought  them  to 
bay  on  the  ice  of  the  lake  not  fifty  yards 
from  where  the  igloos  were  built.  I 
acknowledge  that  I  was  nearly  as  much 
excited  as  the  dogs  over  this  strange  and 
huge  wild  game,  and  I  at  once  shouted 
in  at  the  entrance  of  my  own  igloo  to  my 
best  Eskimo  hunter,  Toolooah  : 

^'  Oo-mi  ng-  mu  k  !  oo-ming-muk  1 1 " 
(Musk-oxen  !  musk-oxen  ! !) 

Toolooah  seized  his  gun  and  ran  to 
the  top  of  the  nearest  ridge,  about 
twenty  yards  away,  followed  by  all  the 
hunters  in  camp  who  had  heard  my  out- 
cry. And  then  the  whole  band  of  them 
sat    down    in    a    row    on    the   ridge    and 


96  THE  CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD, 

laughed  until  the  air  was  full  of  the 
reindeer  hair  shaken  from  their  coats 
in  their  convulsive  mirth  ;  for  the  two 
musk-oxen  proved  to  be  only  two  musk- 
ox  robes  that  we  had  secured  the  day 
before,  with  a  boy  or  two  under  each 
robe ! 

These  boys  had  procured  the  musk-ox 
robes  when  the  sledges  were  being  un- 
loaded, and  had  slipped  away,  unper- 
ceived  by  any  one,  while  the  men  were 
building  the  snow  houses.  After  wrap- 
ping the  robes  around  them  they  had 
come  down  near  the  igloos,  keeping  on 
the  windward  side,  or  that  side  of  the 
Camp  where  the  wind  blowing  on  them 
must  also  pass  over  *  the  camp.  All 
my  boy  readers  know  that  if  game 
or  wild  animals  thus  pass  tiear  good 
hunting-dogs,     the     dogs    will     "  scent " 


SOME    OUTDOOR   SPORTS.  99 

them,  as  hunters  would  say.  And  so  it 
was  in  this  case  ;  and  as  soon  as  they 
were  "  to  windward  "  of  the  little  snow 
village  which  we  were  building,  our  keen- 
est-scented dog,  Parseneuk,  a  beautiful, 
curly-haired,  sharp-eared,  lithe-built  black 
fellow,  that  always  led  all  chases  after 
swift  game,  smelt  the  musk-ox  robes,  and 
— with  his  thoughts  full  of  the  day  before, 
its  exciting  chase,  and,  better  than  all,  its 
good  fine  meal  of  musk-ox  meat — he 
dashed  over  the  ridge  to  investigate. 
The  result  I  have  stated.  The  poor  dog 
seemed  as  badly  sold  as  I  had  been,  for 
all  the  camp  had  been  drawn  out  by  the 
excitement  and  noise  ;  and  so  long  as  the 
boys  kept  the  shaggy  robes  over  their 
shoulders  and  faces,  and  kept  their  backs 
together  with  their  heads  outward,  as  do 
the    musk-oxen    themselves    when    sur- 


lOO  THE    CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

rounded  and  brought  to  bay  by  wolves  or 
dogs,  our  dogs  kept  barking  and  snap- 
ping and  jumping  at  them,  evidently 
thinking  they  were  genuine  musk-oxen, 
and  that  there  was  a  good  prospect  of 
another  nice  dinner  if  they  only  kept  the 
oxen  from  running  away  until  the  hunters 
came  up  and  killed  them,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  real  musk-oxen. 

A  musk-ox  resembles  a  buffalo  in  ap- 
pearance, except  that  the  musk-ox  has  no 
**  hump "  on  its  shoulders,  and  the  hair 
on  its  robe  is  two  or  three  times  as  long 
as  that  on  the  buffalo  (or  American  bison, 
as  it  should  be  called).  In  the  winter- 
time this  long  hair  reaches  down  beyond 
the  knees  almost  to  the  hoofs,  and  when 
the  musk-oxen  are  walking  on  the  soft 
snow,  they  sink  in  so  that  you  can  not 
see    their  legs  at  all.     It  was  this   long 


\  SOME  OUTDOOR  SPORTS.  loi 

hair,  hanging  down  so  low  as  to  almost 
cover  the  legs  of  the  boys  hidden  under- 
neath the  robes,  that  had  so  helped  to 
deceive  me  when  I  first  saw  them,  and 
caused  me  to  put  the  whole  camp  in  an 
uproar  and  thereby  fasten  a  very  good 
joke  on  myself — a  joke  that  clung  to  me 
a  long  time. 

Toolooah,  who  was  one  of  the  most 
merry-hearted  and  best-natured  young 
Esquimaux  I  ever  saw,  and  who,  as  I 
have  told  you,  was  my  best  hunter, 
laughed  until  his  sides  were  sore  and  his 
eyes  were  red ;  and  for  several  weeks 
after  that  he  would  occasionally  say  ''  oo- 
ming-muk  /  "  and  laugh  until  the  tears  ran 
down  his  cheeks.  It  was  not  very  often 
that  they  had  a  good  joke  on  a  white 
man,  and  this  one  they  seemed  to  enjoy 
to  their  hearts'  content. 


102  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

But  the  musk-ox  hunt  Is  not  over  yet 
for  the  boys  ;  in  fact,  the  most  exciting 
part  is  still  to  come.  As  soon  as  the 
mock  musk-oxen  are  "  brought  to  bay  " 
by  the  excited  and  foolish  dogs,  the  other 
boys  get  their  bows  and  arrows  and  hurry 
to  the  spot,  encouraging  the  dogs,  which 
have  now  become  furious  and  wild,  and 
have  formed  a  most  ferocious  circle 
around  their  supposed  prey,  all  the  more 
fierce  where  there  is  so  unusual  a  num- 
ber as  forty-two  dogs  and  but  two  musk- 
oxen.  Tlien  with  their  toy  arrows,  which 
are  specially  blunted  for  this  rough  play, 
the  other  boys  pelt  the  dangling  robes 
in  an  earnest  way  that  must  often  make 
the  boys  under  the  robes  smart  with 
pain,  so  heavily  do  the  blunted  arrows 
thud  against  them  ;  but  these  little  sav- 
ages expect  their  plays  to  be  very  rough, 


SOME   OUTDOOR    SPORTS.  103 

and  a  whack  over  the  knuckles  that 
would  break  up  a  whole  base-ball  game 
of  white  boys,  only  brings  out  an  em- 
phatic '* /^^Z "  (their  ''ouch!")  and  the 
rough,  harum-scarum  game  goes  on.  In 
a  little  while,  the  dogs  seem  to  compre- 
hend that  there  is  some  foolishness  about 
the  matter,  and  begin  to  drop  off  one  by 
one,  in  the  order  of  their  ability  to  see 
through  the  joke,  and  finally  the  game 
dies  a  natural  death  for  want  of  the  dogs 
and  the  noise  and  excitement  which  con- 
tribute to  it. 

The  boys'  mock  polar-bear  hunt  is  so 
much  like  their  musk-ox  hunt  that  a  few 
lines  will  describe  it  One  of  the  boys 
of  the  village  gets  a  polar-bear  robe,  and 
wrapping  it  around  him  after  he  is  out 
among  the  ice  hummocks  about  the 
village,  he   comes   crawling   along  some 


I04  THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  COLD, 

sledge-path  near  the  igloos,  when  he  is 
discovered  by  the  dogs  and  surrounded. 
This  is  likely  to  be  much  rougher  sport 
than  that  of  musk-ox  hunting,  for  the 
boys  take  their  spears  and  jab  away  at 
their  brother  in  the  bear  robe,  until  you 
would  think  they  would  break  some  of 
his  ribs  ;  while  the  dogs,  emboldened  by 
these  supposed  brave  advances,  often- 
times take  big  bites  of  fur  from  the 
dangling  edges  of  the  robe.  The  mock 
bear  rears  up  on  his  hind  feet  and  growls 
in  a  very  ferocious  manner,  until,  worn 
out  at  last  with  his  hard  work  and 
with  having  his  head  so  tightly  cov- 
ered up  with  a  heavy  robe,  he  finally 
falls  over  at  some  thrust  of  a  spear 
and  pretends  to  expire.  But  the  next 
moment  he  crawls  out  from  the  robe, 
much  to  the  disgust    of  the  dogs,  with 


SOME   OUTDOOR   SPORTS.  105 

their    hopes    of    a    fine    meal    of    bear 
flesh. 

It  is  no  uncommon  event  for  a  polar 
bear  to  prowl  along  the  ice-floes  of  the 
^ea-coast,  which  is  its  favorite  walk,  until 
it  finally  stumbles  on  an  Eskimo  village ; 
and  if  the  dogs  see  it  or  smell  it,  it  is 
very  apt  to  be  brought  to  bay  near  by, 
and  then  killed  by  some  of  the  native 
hunters  who  have  been  alarmed  by  the 
noise  and  outcry.  A  fair  fight  on  the 
open  ice  with  a  large  polar  bear  is  some- 
what dangerous,  for  if  severely  wounded 
it  may  tear  the  hunter  to  pieces.  The 
Eskimo  seldom  wound  any  dangerous 
animals,  for,  being  a  very  brave  people, 
— that  is,  personally  brave — they  gener- 
ally go  so  close  that,  unless  some 
accident  with  the  fire-arms  happens, 
the     animal,     whether     it     is     bear     or 


lo6  THE    CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

musk-ox,    is    usually    killed    at   the    first 
shot. 

I  once  found  an  old  Eskimo  hunter, 
However,  in  my  camp  in  North  Hudson's 
Bay,  whose  hair  and  scalp  had  been 
taken  completely  off  by  the  bite  of  a 
wounded  bear  that  he  had  endeavored 
to  kill ;  and  Toolooah  once  fired  at  a  big 
bear,  with  too  hasty  an  aim,  hoping  to 
save  one  of  his  dogs  that  the  bear  had 
under  its  paws.  He  only  wounded  the 
huge  animal,  which  instantly  charged 
him,  and  was  only  killed  by  a  lucky  shot 
just  as  it  was  close  upon  the  hunter. 

Toolooah  told  me  that  he  has  seen 
polar  bears  climb  up  places  so  steep  and 
perpendicular  that  the  natives  could  not 
follow  them  without  cutting  in  the  wall 
of  ice  niches  wherein  to  put  their  hands 
and  feet,  and  even  in  some  instances,  an 


POLAR    BEAR    KILLING    A    WALRUS, 


SOME   OUTDOOR   SPORTS.  109 

ice-wall  so  high  that  the  hunters  dared 
not  attempt  to  climb  it  on  account  of  the 
danger  of  slipping  and  killing  them- 
selves. A  British  explorer  of  the  Arctic 
regions  says  that  he  once  climbed  to  the 
top  of  an  iceberg,  and  there  found  a  big 
white  bear  sleeping  away,  in  quiet  pos- 
session. The  bear,  on  discovering  the 
party,  jumped  over  the  perpendicular 
side  of  the  ice  mountain,  fifty-one  feet, 
into  the  sea,  and  swam  to  the  nearest 
land,  which  was  more  than  twenty  miles 
away. 

The  polar  bears  live  on  seal  and  wal- 
rus, crawling  stealthily  up  to  the  former 
on  the  ice-floes  and  catching  them  ;  while 
of  the  walrus  only  the  young  are  thus 
caught,  for  an  old  walrus  is  twice  as  big 
as  Bruin.  Some  Arctic  explorers,  how- 
ever— Captain  Hall  and  Dr.  Rae  among 


no  THE   CHILDREN  OF    THE   COLD. 

Others — state  that  the  bears  sometimes 
surprise  an  old  walrus  by  climbing  above 
him  on  a  precipitous  hill,  or  the  walls  of 
an  iceberg,  and  then  taking  stones  or 
huge  pieces  of  ice  in  their  forepaws  and 
throwing  them  with  such  force  as  to 
crack  the  walrus's  skull  as  he  lies  asleep 
or  at  rest  upon  the  ice.  Then  the 
bears  spring  down  on  the  stunned  walrus 
and  finish  him. 


AN  UNWELCOME  VISITOR 


CHAPTER    VII. 

ESKIMO    CANDY. 

TT  would  seem  very  strange,  and  per- 
^  haps  not  very  pleasant,  to  my  young 
readers  to  hear  a  tallow  candle  or  the 
shin-bone  of  a  reindeer  called  candy. 
And  yet  these  things  may  really  be  con- 
sidered as  Eskimo  candy,  because  they 
would  delight  the  children  of  the  cold  in 
precisely  the  way  that  a  box  of  bon-bons 
would  delight  you. 

There  is  a  certain  kind  of  water-fowl 
in  Arctic  countries  known  as  the  dovekie. 


THE   CHILDREN    OF    THE    COLD. 


It  is  about  the  size  of  a  duck,  is  quite 
black,  has  a  prominent  white  stripe  on 
its  wings,  and  its  webbed  feet  are  of  a 
brilliant  red.  When  sitting  in  rows  on 
the  edge  of  some  mossy,  dark-green 
rock,  these  little  red  feet  are  very  con- 
spicuous, and,  together  with  the  white 
stripes  on  the  wings,  make  the  dovekie  a 
very  pretty  bird.  Sometimes,  when  the 
men  have  killed  a 
number  of  dovekies, 
the  Eskimo  women 
cut  off  the  bright  red 
feet,    draw     out     the 


ESKIMO   CANDY, 


^n 


bones,  and,  blowing  into  the  skins,  distend 
them  as  much  as  possible  so  as  to  form 
pouches.  When  these  pouches  are  thor- 
oughly dried  they  are 
filled  with  reindeer 
tallow,  and  the  bright 
red  packages,  which 
I  assure  you  look 
much  nicer  than  they 
taste,  are  little  Bo- 
reas's  candy.  In  very 
cold  weather  the  Es- 
kimo children  eat 
great  quantities  of  fat 
and  blubber  ;  and  this 
fatty  food,  which 
seems    to    us   so    un- 


■    / 

114  ^'^^   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

inviting,  helps  to  keep  them   warm  and 
well. 

The  only  other  kind  of  candy  that  the 
Eskimo  children  have,  is  the  marrow 
from  the  long  leg  or  shin-bone  of  the 
slaughtered  reindeer.  Of  this,  also,  they 
are  very  fond.  Whenever  a  reindeer  is 
killed  and  the  meat  has  been  stripped 
from  the  bones  of  the  legs,  these  bones 
are  placed  on  the  floor  of  the  igloo  and 
cracked  with  a  hatchet  until  the  marrow 
is  exposed.  The  bones  are  then  forced 
apart  with  the  hands,  and  the  marrow  is 
dug  out  of  the  ends  with  a  long,  sharp 
and  narrow  spoon  made  from  a  walrus's 
tusk.  I  have  eaten  this  reindeer  mar- 
row frozen  and  cooked;  and  after  one 
becomes  accustomed  to  eating  frozen 
meat  raw,  it  is  really  an  acceptable  tid- 
bit ;  while  cooked  and    nicely  served,  it 


ESKIMO  CANDY.  115 

would  be  a  delicacy  anywhere.  Some- 
times, if  Toolooah  was  unusually  lucky, 
he  would  have  eight  or  ten  reindeer  on 
hand  that  he  had  killed  during  the  day, 
and  as  each  deer  has  eight  leg-bones, 
from  which  the  marrow  can  be  extracted, 
quite  a  meal  could  be  made  from  this 
very  peculiar  candy 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

ATHLETIC     AM^JSExVfENTS, 

'INHERE  Is  one  kind  of  play  in  which 
■^  the  Eskimo  boys  seem  always  ready 
to  indulge — a  roll  downhill.  They  select 
a  small  but  steep  hill,  or  incline,  well-cov- 
ered with  snow,  and,  seating  themselves 
on  the  top  of  the  ridge,  thrust  their 
heads  between  their  legs,  pass  their 
clinched,  gloved  hands  over  their  ankles, 
pressing  their  legs  as  closely  against 
their  bodies  as  possible.  They  thus 
really   make    themselves  into    big    balls 


ESKIMO    BOYS    ROLLING    DOWN    A    HILL.  II7 


ATHLETIC  AMUSEMENTS. 


119 


covered  with  reindeer  hair,  and  then 
away  they  go  On  a  rolling  race  downhill, 
suddenly  spreading  themselves  out  at 
full  length,  and  stopping  instantly  at  the 
bottom  of  the  hill.  Every  now  and  then 
when  a  playful   mood  strikes  a  boy,   he 


OH  !    SUCH   FUN. 

will  double  himself  up  and  roll  downhill 
without  waiting  for  the  rivalry  of  a  race, 
but  it  is  violent  exercise,  and  it  bumps 
the  little  urchin  severely. 


i20  THE   CHILDREN  OF    THE   COLD. 

Another  athletic  amusement  In  which 
the  boys  Indulge,  and  which  requires  a 
great  deal  of  strength,  is  a  peculiar  kind 
of  short  race  on  the  hands  and  feet. 
The  boys  lean  forward  on  their  hands 
and  feet,  with  their  arms  and  legs  held  as 
stiffly  as  possible,  and  under  no  circum- 
stances must  they  bend  either  the  elbows 
or  knees.  In  this  stiff  and  rigid  position, 
resting  only  on  their  feet  and  on  the 
knuckles  of  their  clinched  fists,  they 
jump  or  hitch  forward  a  couple  of  Inches 
by  a  quick,  convulsive  movement  of  the 
whole  body.  These  movements  are 
rapidly  repeated,  perhaps  once  or  twice 
in  a  second,  until  the  contestants  have 
covered  two  or  three  yards  along  the 
hard  snow-drifts.  Then  they  become 
exhausted,  for,  as  I  have  already  said, 
this     exercise     calls      for     considerable 


F 


%:im: ::«  ^ 


ATHLETIC  AMUSEMENTS.  123 

Strength,  and  Is  indeed  a  very  fatiguing 
amusement ;  so  that,  by  the  time  a  boy 
has  played  quite  energetically  in  this 
way,  If  only  for  a  minute,  he  feels  very 
tired,  and  Is  willing  to  take  a  breathing 
spell.  It  is  not  a  very  graceful  game, 
and  If  you  were  to  take  a  carpenter's 
wooden  horse  and  jog  it  along  by  short 
jerks  over  the  floor,  you  would  have  a 
tolerably  fair  representation  of  this  awk- 
ward game  of  the  Eskimo  children. 
The  best  part  of  It  all  Is  the  exercise  it 
gives  them,  and  often  one  will  see  a 
single  boy  jumping  along  In  this  stiff- 
legged  fashion  as  if  he  were  practicing 
for  a  race,  a  slight  downhill  grade  being 
preferred. 

Another  method  of  racing,  somewhat 
similar  to  the  above.  Is  also  practiced ; 
folding  the  arms  across  the  breast,  and 


124  ^^^^   CHILDREN  OF    THE   COLD. 

holding  the  knees  firmly  rigid,  with 
the  feet  close  together,  the  contestants 
paddle  along  as  fast  as  possible  by  short 
jumps  of  an  inch  or  two.  It  is  a  severe 
strain  on  the  feet,  and  one  cannot  go 
very  far  in  so  awkward  a  way.  The 
little  girls,  standing  in  a  row  of  from 
three  to  ^v^,  often  jump  up  and  down  in 
the  same  manner,  keeping  a  sort  of  time 
with  the  thumping  of  their  heels  to  the 
rude  songs  that  they  are  spluttering  out 
in  short  jerks  and  gasps,  as  unmusical  as 
the  hammering  of  their  heels.  A  lot  of 
these  little  damsels  would  favor  us  with 
a  short  version  of  this  stiff-jumping, 
spluttering  melody  whenever  they  were 
particularly  grateful  for  some  small  gift 
we  had  presented  to  them. 

A   capital  game    played   by  the  little 
girls,  and  by  some  of  the  smaller  boys,  is 


ATHLETIC  AMUSEMENTS.  127 

a  rude  sort  of  ball-game.  Thick  seal-skin 
leather  is  made  into  a  ball  about  the  size 
of  our  common  base-ball,  and  then  filled 
about  two-thirds  full  with  sand.  If  com- 
pletely filled,  it  would  be  as  hard  and 
unyielding  as  a  stone,  and  the  singular 
sliding  way  it  has  of  yielding  because  of 
its  being  only  partially  filled,  makes  it 
much  harder  to  catch  and  retain  in  the 
hands  than  our  common  ball.  The  game 
is  a  very  simple  one,  much  like  our  play 
with  bean-bags,  and  consists  simply  in 
striking  at  the  ball  with  the  open  palm 
of  the  hand,  and,  when  there  is  a  crowd 
of  players,  in  keeping  the  ball  constantly 
in  the  air.  This  is  a  favorite  summer 
game  when  the  snow  is  off  the  ground 
and  the  people  are  living  in  seal-skin 
tents.  No  doubt  it  affords  considerable 
exercise.     Whenever  the   ball    drops   to 


128  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE    COLD. 

the  ground,  or  the  players  fail  to  keep 
it  flying,  it  is  a  signal  for  a  rest.  Simple 
as  is  the  game,  the  little  Eskimo  manage 
to  gain  much  fun  and  excitement  from 
it,  and  whenever  you  hear  an  unusual 
amount  of  shouting  and  loud  and  bois- 
terous merriment  out-of-doors,  you  may 
be  almost  certain  of  finding,  when  you 
go  to  your  tent  door,  that  all  the  chil- 
dren of  the  village  are  engaged  in  a 
game  of  '*  sand-bag  ball." 

A  favorite  Eskimo  amusement  is  one 
which  both  the  white  and  Indian  boys 
sometimes  play  with  the  bow  and  arrow. 
It  is  to  see  how  many  arrows  can  be  kept 
in  the  air  at  one  time.  The  Eskimo 
boy,  with  his  quiver  pulled  around  over 
his  shoulders  so  that  he  can  get  the 
arrows  quickly  and  readily,  commences 
shooting  them   straight   up  into  the  air, 


AlHLETIC  AMUSEMENTS,  129 

and  when  the  first  arrow  thus  shot  up 
strikes  the  ground,  he  must  at  once  stop. 
The  number  of  arrows  he  has  shot  indi- 
cates his  score,  which  he  will  compare 
with  that  made  by  the  other  boys. 
Sometimes  they  will  only  count  those 
that  in  descending  stand  upright  in  the 
snow,  and  in  this  case  they  will  shoot  all 
that  are  in  their  quivers. 

At  another  time  they  will  count  only 
those  that  stick  upright  within  a  certain 
area,  generally  a  circle  of  from  twenty  to 
thirty  yards  in  diameter ;  these  must  all 
be  shot  from  the  bow  by  the  time  the 
first  arrow  strikes  within  the  space 
marked  out,  and  in  this  case  considerable 
precision  and  rapidity  in  shooting  are 
required  to  make  a  good  score.  The 
boys  will  often  shoot  a  single  arrow  high 
into  the  air  and  try  to  intercept  it  with 


130  THE   CHILDREN   OF   THE   COLD. 

another  one  sent  straight  horizontally 
above  the  ground  as  the  first  one  rapidly 
descends.  The  Eskimo  and  Indians  and 
other  savage  tribes  who  are  skilled  in  the 
use  of  the  bow  and  arrow,  can  shoot  an 
arrow  so  that  it  will  go  somewhat  side- 
wise.  They  practice  this  way  of  shoot- 
ing when  trying  to  hit  a  descending 
arrow,  or  one  stuck  upright  in  the 
ground.  It  must,  however,  be  remem- 
bered that  the  Eskimo  are  not  as  good 
bowmen  as  are  many  of  the  other  savage 
tribes,  who  gain  a  part  or  all  of  their 
living  by  this  instrument;  the  Eskimo  use 
spears  and  lances  much  more  frequently, 
and  where  accuracy  is  especially  needed, 
bows  are  seldom  employed.  With  those 
Eskimo  who  come  into  frequent  contact 
with  white  men,  guns  have  now  altogether 
taken  the  place  of  bows  and  arrows. 


ATHLETIC  AMUSEMENTS.  131 

Another  Eskimo  out-of-door  amuse- 
ment much  resembles  the  old  Indian 
game  of  "Lacrosse."  It  is  played  on 
the  smooth  lake  ice,  with  three  or  four 
small  round  balls  of  quartz  or  granite, 
about  the  size  of  an  English  walnut. 
These  are  kicked  and  knocked  about 
the  lake,  with  plenty  of  fun  and  shouting, 
but  utterly  without  any  rules  to  govern 
,  the  game. 

It  takes  a  long  time  to  grind  one  of 
these  irregular  pieces  of  stone  into  a 
round  ball,  but  the  Eskimo  people  are 
very  patient  and  untiring  in  their  rou- 
tine work,  and  with  them,  as  with  the 
Indians,  time  is  of  hardly  any  consequence 
whatever.  The  number  of  years  that  they 
will  spend  in  plodding  away  at  the  most 
simple  things  shows  them  to  be  probably 
the  most  patient  people  in  the  world. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

ESKIMO     PATIENCE. 

1T7HEN  we  were  near  King  Williams 
*  ^  Land,  I  saw  an  Eskimo  working  up- 
on a  knife  that,  as  nearly  as  I  could  ascer- 
tain, had  engaged  a  good  part  of  his  time 
some  six  years  preceding  that  date.  He 
had  a  fiat  piece  of  iron,  which  had  been 
taken  from  the  wreck  of  one  of  Sir  John 
Franklin's  ships,  and  from  this  he  was 
endeavoring  to  make  a  knife-blade,  which, 
when  completed,  would  be  about  twelve 
inches  long.     In  cutting  it  from  this  iron 


ESKIMO  PATIENCE.  133 

plate  he  was  using  for  a  chisel  an  old 
file,  found  on  one  of  the  ships,  which  it 
had  taken  him  two  or  three  years  to 
sharpen  by  rubbing  Its  edge  against 
stones  and  rocks.  His  cold-chisel  fin- 
ished, he  had  been  nearly  as  many  years 
cutting  a  straight  edge  along  the  ragged 
sides  of  the  irregular  piece  of  Iron,  and 
when  I  discovered  him  he  had  outlined 
the  width  of  his  knife  on  the  plate  and 
was  cutting  away  at  it.  It  would  proba- 
bly have  taken  him  two  years  to  cut  out 
this  piece,  and  two  more  to  fashion  the 
knife  into  shape  and  usefulness. 

The  file  which  he  had  made  Into  a 
cold-chisel  was  such  a  proof  of  labor  and 
patience  that  it  was  a  great  curiosity  to 
me,  and  I  gave  him  a  butcher's  knife  in 
exchange  for  it.  Thus  almost  the  very 
thing   he    had    been    so    long    trying    to 


134  THE   CHILDREN  OF    THE    COLD. 

make  he  now  unexpectedly  found  in  his 
possession.  When  I  told  him  that  our 
factories  (or  **  big  igloos^'  as  I  called 
them  for  his  easier  understanding)  could 
make  more  than  he  could  carry  of  such 
butcher-knives  during  the  time  we  had 
spent  in  talking  about  his,  he  expressed 
his  great  surprise  in  prolonged  gasps  of 
breath  at  this  manifest  superiority  of 
the  Kod'loou-sah,  as  the  Eskimo  call  the 
white  men. 

Among  the  women  of  this  same  tribe 
I  found  a  number  of  square  iron  nee- 
dles that  they  had  taken  months  to 
make,  slowly  filing  them  on  rough,  rusty 
irort  plates  and  occasionally  using  stones 
for  the  same  purpose.  We  had  with  us 
a  great  number  of  glover's  needles,  and 
these  we  traded  for  the  iron  ones,  which 
to  us  were  great  curiosities.    The  women 


ESKIMO  PATIENCE^  135 

do  some  wonderfully  neat  sewing  with 
these  needles,  considering  the  nature  of 
the  implements  and  the  coarse  thread  of 
reindeer  sinew  which  they  use.  This 
sinew  is  stripped  from  the  reindeer's 
back  in  flat  pieces  about  eighteen  inches 
long  and  two  inches  wide.  The  Eskimo 
woman's  spool  of  thread  consists  of  a 
bundle  of  these  strips  of  sinew,  hung  up 
in  the  igloo,  from  which  she  strips  a 
thread  whenever  she  needs  one.  It  is 
very  strong,  and  will  cut  through  the 
flesh  of  one's  fingers  before  it  can  be 
broken.  The  Eskimo  braid  it  into  fish- 
lines,  bow-strings,  whip-cord,  and  nearly 
always  have  a  ball  of  it  on  hand  in  the 
house  braided  up  and  ready  for  use. 

Before  the  Eskimo  became  acquainted 
with  white  men,  and  learned  to  use  their 
better  implements,  many  household  arti- 


136  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

cles  were  made  from  bone  and  the  Ivory 
walrus  tusks.  Among  these  were  lorks, 
spoons,  and  even  knives,  of  which  a  few 
designs  are  shown  on  the  next  page. 
Very  few  are  In  existence  now,  but  some 
of  them  were  much  more  orrtamental 
than  those  In  the  Illustration,  for,  as  I 
have  said,  the  northern  natives  do  not 
hesitate  to  begin  any  thing  for  want  of 
time  in  which  to  complete  it ;  and  If  they 
only  have  the  Ingenuity  to  manufacture 
odd  or  pretty  designs,  they  have  plenty 
of  leisure  and  plenty  of  patience  to  carve 
them  out. 

Many  of  the  smaller  and  odd  pieces 
left  from  the  tusk  are  carved  Into  figures 
of  birds  and  animals.  Occasionally  you 
will  see  some  old  woman  of  the  tribe 
with  quite  a  bagful  of  ivory  dogs,  ducks, 
bears,    swans,    walrus,    seals,    and    every 


ESKIMO  PATIENCE,  ,3^ 

living  thing  with  the  form  of  which  they 
are  familiar.  They  will  make  rude 
dominoes  and  sit  and  play  with  them  for 
hours  at  a  time  during  their  long  winter 
evenings.  And  not  toys  only,  but  many 
articles  of  utility  also  are  thus  carved 
from  the  ivory  taken  from  the  tusks  of 
the  walrus.  Walrus  and  seal  spear- 
•  heads,  and  the  sharpened  head  of  the 
lances  the}^  used  in  killling  the  musk-ox 
and  polar  bear,  were  formerly  thus  made. 
In  fact,  it  would  have  been  almost  impos- 
sible for  the  Eskimo  to  exist  without  this 
valuable  portion  of  the  walrus,  before 
an  acquaintance  with  the  white  men  en- 
abled them  to  secure  iron  and  guns  to 
replace  their  own  rude  implements. 
The  principal  use  now  made  of  the 
tusks  is  to  trade  them  in  quantities 
to    the    whalers,    who    pay     for     them 


I40  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE  COLD. 

in     such    merchandise     as     the    natives 
need. 

The  Eskimo  have  no  money  of  any 
sort,  and  know  nothing  of  its  use.  In 
fact,  they  know  very  little  about  the 
true  value  of  any  one  thing  as  compared 
with  others  ;  and  if  they  desire  a  needle, 
or  any  other  small  article,  they  are  ready 
to  give  in  exchange  for  it  a  garment  or 
object  which  you,  brought  up  to  compare 
the  value  of  things,  would  know  to  be 
worth  ten,  or  possibly  one  hundred,  times 
as  much.  The  poor  creatures  are  thus 
often  badly  cheated  by  unprincipled  per- 
sons who  take  advantage  of  this  trait  of 
their  character,  and  they  frequently  re- 
ceive little  or  nothing  for  things  which 
in  our  own  country  are  very  valuable. 
I  once  saw  such  a  man  give  twenty-five 
musket-caps  to  an   Eskimo  boy  for  five 


ESKIMO  PATIENCE.  141 

pretty,  white  fox  skins,  which,  at  that 
rate,  would  have  been  one  cent  of  our 
money  for  three  fox  skins  ;  and  the  skins 
could  readily  be  sold  for  five  dollars 
when  he  reached  the  United  States. 


CHAPTER   X. 

LITTLE    BOREAS'S    WORK. 

TN  common  with  the  children  of  work- 
•*■  ers  all  over  the  world,  little  Boreas 
must  commence  to  take  his  share  in  the 
family  toil  as  soon  as  he  is  old  enough 
to  learn  and  strong  enough  to  do.  Most 
of  the  sports  of  the  boys  are,  in  fact, 
such  as  will  enable  them  to  learn  some- 
thing that  will  be  useful  later  in  life,  such 
as  playing  with  the  young  dogs,  harness- 
ing and  driving  them,  shooting  with  the 
bow  and  arrow,  and  throwincr  the  lance 


LITTLE  BOREAS' S  WORK.  143 

at  live  animals.  The  girls,  also,  in 
making-  their  dolls,  learn  to  sew  and  to 
make  coats  and  other  garments  of  rein- 
deer skin,  and  boots  and  shoes  of  seal- 
skin leather. 

When  the  men  have  very  nearly 
finished  building  the  igloo,  the  boys  are 
expected  to  take  the  big,  broad  wooden 
shovel,  described  in  Chapter  II.,  and 
throw  the  loose  snow  against  the  sides 
of  the  igloo ;  for  between  the  blocks  of 
snow  will  be  many  *' chinks"  and  crevices 
that  would  let  in  a  great  deal  of  cold  air 
if  not  stopped  up.  Besides  throwing  on 
this  loose,  soft  snow  about  two  feet  deep, 
the  boys  have  still  another  way  of  "  chink- 
ing." Little  Boreas,  with  the  snow-knife 
in  his  right  hand,  cuts  from  the  upper 
edge  of  the  block,  in  the  joint  which  is 
to  be  *'  chinked,"  a  thin  slice    of   snow, 


144 


THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE  COLD. 


and  with  his  left  fist  doubled  up  rams  it 
into  the  joint  between  the  blocks,  his 
left  fist  keeping  a  constant  punching  as 
the  knife  runs  slowly  along  the  edge  of 
the  joint. 

Of  course,  during  the  first  three  or 
four  courses  of  blocks,  the  boys  (and 
sometimes  the  girls)  can  "chink"  the 
joints  while  they  are  standing  or  kneel- 
ing on  the  ground ;  but  after  it  gets 
above  and  beyond  the  reach  of  their 
arms,  they  have  to  crawl  on  top  of  the 
house,  which  looks  so  frail  that  you  are 
almost  certain  the  little  fellows  will 
tumble  through  the  thin  snow  walls  of 
the  hut.  But  when  it  is  completed  and 
made  of  good  snow,  three  or  four  big 
men  can  go  on  top  of  it,  so  much 
stronger  is  it  than  it  appears  to  be. 
Sometimes,    however,   the  boys  are  sur- 


LITTLE  BOREAS' S  WORK.  145 

prised  and  disappointed  ;  for,  when  the 
snow  is  soft,  or  happens  to  be  full  of 
sand  or  little  specks  of  ice,  they  come 
tumbling  through  the  top  of  the  igloo, 
generally  on  the  heads  of  those  who  are 
making  the  bed  or  setting  the  lamp 
inside  of  the  house  ;  and  then  the  igloo 
has  to  be  built  all  over  again.  Fortu- 
nately, however,  these  cases  are  of  rare 
occurrence. 

Sometimes,  in  very  cold  weather,  the 
boys  will  both  "chink"  and  "bank"  the 
igloo  (banking  being  the  covering  with 
loose  snow),  and  then,  with  a  small  lamp, 
it  is  quite  easy  to  heat  up  the  little  snow 
house  to  a  comfortable  temperature ; 
but  this,  you  remember,  must  never  rise 
to  the  point  where  snow  melts,  or  the 
house  will  come  tumbling  in  on  their 
heads.      After    Boreas's    father   has    cut 


J  46  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE  COLU.  I 

enough  snow  blocks  to  go  two  or  three 
times  around  the  ig/oOy  if  there  is  no 
other  man  in  the  party,  he  will  tell 
Boreas  to  cut  the  rest ;  and  the  lad  gen- 
erally manages  to  furnish  his  father  with 
enough  blocks  to  complete  the  house. 

After  the  i£'/oo  is  finished,  the  bedding 
of  reindeer  skins  is  taken  from  the 
sledge  ;  but  before  these  go  in-doors,  the 
snow  that  has  worked  into  them  (espe- 
cially if  there  has  been  a  strong  wind 
during  the  day)  must  be  beaten  off  with  a 
snow-stick ;  and  this  comparatively  light 
work  generally  falls  to  the  children,  unless 
there  is  a  great  hurry  to  get  into  shelter 
from  some  terrible  wind,  in  which  case 
all  the  party  turn  to  and  work  with  a  will. 

When  the  house  is  finished,  Boreas 
must  see  that  the  dogs  are  unharnessed 
and  turned  loose.     The  seal-skin  harness. 


LITTLE  BOREAS S  WORK.  147 

which  the  dogs  would  eat  if  in  their 
usual  hungry  condition,  must  be  put 
inside  the  snow  house  or  fastened  to  the 
top  of  a  tall  pole,  stuck  upright  in  the 
snow,  so  that  the  dogs  can  not  reach  it. 
In  the  morning,  when  the  dogs  are 
needed  for  the  day's  work,  the  boys  have 
to  scamper  around  with  two  or  three 
harnesses  in  their  hands,  catch  and  har- 
ness the  dogs,  hitch  them  to  the  sledge, 
and  then  start  out  after  another  lot.  It 
frequently  happens  that  some  particular 
dog  takes  an  especial  delight  in  giving  hl^ 
catchers  just  as  much  trouble  as  he  possi- 
bly can.  As  soon  as  he  sees  that  the 
other  dogs  are  being  harnessed,  he  will 
trot  away  to  the  top  of  some  high  ridge, 
and  coolly  sitting  down,  will  maliciously 
watch  the  efforts  made  to  catch  him. 
Of    course,  every    body   now    turns    out. 


1^8  THE   CHILDREN-  OF   THE   COLD.  / 

the  dog  is  surrounded,  and  probably  after 
he  has  broken  through  the  circle  thus 
formed  around  him  two  or*three  times,  he 
is  finally  caught  and  receives  a  severe 
trouncing  from  a  harness-trace  in  the 
hands  of  some  angry  young  Eskimo ; 
but  this  lesson  seldom  does  the  dogs 
much  good,  as  I  have  always  noticed 
that,  like  spoiled  children,  they  invaria- 
bly go  from  bad  to  worse,  until  finally 
their  master  becomes  so  angry  that  he 
ties  one  of  the  dog's  forefeet  to  its  body 
every  night,  so  that  he  will  have  no 
.  trouble  in  catching  the  would-be  runa- 
way on  the  next  morning.- 

The  dogs  are  also  used  in  various  ways 
in  hunting.  When  the  weather  is  so 
foggy  that  Boreas's  father  can  not  see 
very  far,  and  there  is  consequently  but 
little  prospect  of  killing  any  thing,  unless 


LITTLE  BOREAS' S  WORK.  151 

the  hunter  almost  stumbles  upon  it,  the 
father  will  take  his  bow  and  arrows,  or 
his  gun,  if  he  be  fortunate  enough  to  own 
one,  and  giving  the  best-trained  hunting- 
dog  in  charge  of  Boreas  himself,  they 
start  out  reindeer  hunting.  Boreas  puts 
a  harness  on  the  dog,  ties  the  trace 
around  his  own  waist,  or  holds  it  in  his 
hands,  and  follows  his  father  out  into 
the  fog. 

Of  course,  the  older  Eskimo  has  some 
idea  of  where  the  reindeer  will  be  grazing 
or  resting,  and  he  soon  finds  out  which 
way  the  wind  is  blowing  over  the  place 
where  he  suspects  the  reindeer  to  be. 
Then,  with  Boreas  and  the  dog,  he  goes 
around  in  such  a  way  that  the  game  will 
not  be  disturbed,  to  some  place  where 
the  wind,  blowing  over  the  reindeer,  will 
come  toward  the  hunters.     As  soon  as 


152  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

this  place  is  reached,  the  dog  smells  the 
reindeer,  and  commences  sniffing  the  air 
as  if  anxious  to  get  toward  them.  Boreas 
allows  the  dog  to  advance  slowly,  still 
holding  on  to  the  harness  so  that  the 
dog  shall  not  run  away.  As  soon  as  it 
scents  the  deer,  it  goes  directly  toward 
them,  and  when  it  is  quite  near,  it  grows 
excited,  and  commences  to  jump  and  to 
jerk  the  harness-trace  by  which  Boreas  is 
holding  it ;  being  a  well-trained  hunting- 
dog,  however,  it  never  barks  so  as  to 
frighten  the  deer  by  the  sound. 

Boreas  s  father  now  knows  from  these 
excited  actions  of  the  dog  that  the  rein- 
deer must  be  close  at  hand,  although  he 
can  not  see  them  for  the  fog.  So  he  tells 
Boreas  to  hold  the  dog  and  remain  in 
that  spot,  while  he  takes  his  bow  or  gun 
and    crawls    cautiously    forward    in    the 


LITTLE  BOREAS  S  l^  ORK. 


53 


proper  direction.  Before  he  has  gone 
far,  probably  not  more  than  twenty  or 
twenty-five  yards  away,  the  huge  forms 
of  two  or  three  reindeer  locTm  up  through 
the  fog.  If  he  is  a  good  hunter  he  will 
at  least  bring  one  down,  and  perhaps 
two  or  three  of  them,  and  so  have  some- 
thing for  supper.  When  there  is  snow 
on  the  ground,  the  boy  will  generally 
take  two  or  three  dogs  along,  and  after 
a  reindeer  is  killed,  will  use  them  to 
drag  it  into  the  snow  house.  As  Boreas 
loves  excitement,  this  is  good  sport,  and 
in  this  way  he  soon  learns  to  hunt  quite 
well. 


CHAPTER  XL 

SEAL     H  UNTING. 

npHE  ice  on  the  ocean  forms  from  six 
•*■  to  ten  feet  thick,  and  through  this 
deep  ice  the  seals  manage  to  scratch  a  hole 
to  the  top,  and  then  form  a  little  igloo 
in  the  foot  or  two  of  snow  that  usually 
covers  the  ice.  In  the  top  of  this  little 
snow  dome  is  an  opening  as  large  as 
your  two  fingers ;  and  to  this  igloo  the 
seal  comes,  about  every  quarter  of  an 
hour,  to  breathe.  When  he  puts  his 
nose  close  to  the  little  hole  at  the  top 


SEAL  HUNTING. 


155 


THE   SEAL  S   IGLOO. 


of  the  dome  for  some  fresh  air,  he 
breathes  in  a  series  of  short  gasps  that 
any  one   near  the 


hole  can  readily 
hear.  These  holes 
are  so  small  that 
even  the  close- 
observing  Es- 
kimo hunters,  while  walking  over  miles 
of  ice-fields,  could  easily  pass  them 
by  without  observing  them.  But  if 
there  is  a  dog  along,  as  in  reindeer- 
hunting,  and  if  the  wind  is  in  the 
right  direction,  and  a  seal  has  been 
breathing  recently  in  the  igloOy  the  dog 
will  scent  a  seal-hole  a  hundred  yards 
away,  and  will  lead  the  hunter  to  it.  As 
it  is  very  uncertain  just  how  long  he  will 
have  to  wait  for  the  seals,  the  hunter 
proceeds  at  once  to  cut  out  two  or  three 


15^ 


THE    CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 


blocks  of  snow  to  make  a  comfortable 
seat  on  which  to  rest  and  wait.  As  I 
have  already  said,  the  seal  breathes,  or 
**  blows,"  as  it  is  called,  every  fifteen  or 
twenty   minutes;    but    oftentimes    he    is 

traveling,  and 
each  time 
comes  up  to 
a  different 
hole  to  blow. 
It  is  possi- 
ble, too,  that 
READY  FOR  THE  SEAL  TO  BLOW,  ue  may  hear 
or  smell  the  hunter  or  his  dog — for 
seals  are  very  timid  animals — in  fact, 
there  are  many  reasons  why  the  hole 
may  not  be  visited  by  a  seal  for  a 
long  time,  and  after  watching  for  a 
whole  day,  the  hunter  may  have  to 
leave    the    place    unrewarded.      Where 


SEAL  HUNTING.  157 

the  natives,  as  is  often  the  case,  have 
been  almost  starving,  owing  to  the  scarc- 
ity of  seals  and  other  game  on  which 
they  live,  the  best  and  most  patient  seal- 
hunters  have  been  known  to  sit  for  two 
or  three  days  at  one  hole  watching  vigi- 
lantly for  a  seal's  nose.  But,  however 
long  it  may  be  before  '*  pussy "  (as  the 
seals  are  sometimes  called)  comes  around 
to  breathe  a  little  whiff  of  fresh  air,  as 
soon  as  the  first  ''blow"  is  heard  by  the 
hunter,  who  is,  perhaps,  half  asleep,  he 
is  at  once  full  of  expectation  and  excite- 
ment. He  places  the  point  of  his  seal- 
spear  close  to  the  "blow-hole,"  and  by 
the  time  '*  pussy  "  has  taken  two  or  three 
whiffs  she  is  astonished  by  a  sudden 
thrust  of  the  spear  crushing  through  the 
dome  of  snow ;  the  cruel  barb  on  the 
spear-point  catches  into  her  flesh  under- 


158  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD, 

neath  the  skin,  and  the  hunter  draws  her 
to  the  top  of  the  ice,  crushes  in  the  snow 
with  his  heavy  heel,  and  then  kills  the 
captured  seal. 

Sometimes  the  mother  seal  seeks  a 
breathing-hole  under  the  deepest  snow 
and  makes  a  much  larger  dome,  so 
that  the  ice  will  form  a  shelf  two  or 
t  n  r  e  e  feet  in 
width.  Here  the 
little  ''  kittens," 
or  baby  seals, 
spend  their  time 
until  they  are 
big  enough  to  try  to  swim  with  their 
mother  and  learn  to  care  for  them- 
selves. Here,  too,  she  brings  them 
food,  and  when  disturbed,  hurries  away, 
leaving  her  kittens  on  their  ice  shelf, 
where    they    are    safe     from    harm,    be- 


THE  LEDGES  FOR  THE  SEAL  BABIEK 


SEAL  HUNTING.  159 

cause  they  are  of  the  same  color  as 
the  snow  and,  therefore,  can  not  be  seen 
by  the  wolf  or  bear  who  Is  out  seal-hunt- 
ing. The  Eskimo,  however,  when  he 
comes  to  one  of  these  igloos,  has  an 
instrument  like  a  long  knitting-needle, 
which  he  sticks  in  through  the  blow-hole, 
and,  working  it  around,  soon  finds  out 
whether  any  babies  are  to  be  kidnapped 
from  Mother  Seal's  snow  house 


CHAPTER   XII. 

FISHING. 

A  FTER  little  Boreas's  father  has  gone 
^  ^  into  camp,  and  while  he  is  building 
his  snow  house,  the  boys  of  the  party  go 
to  work,  dig  a  hole  through  the  ice  on  the 
fresh-water  lake,  near  where  the  camp  is 
built,  in  order  to  get  fresh  water,  with 
which  to  cook  supper.  The  first  thing 
necessary  is  to  select  a  good  spot  for  the 
well,  which  is  generally  about  a  foot  and 
a  half  or  two  feet  in  diameter,  and  from 
four  to  eight  and  ten  feet  deep,  depend- 
ing, of  course,  upon  the  thickness  of  the 
;ce. 


FISHING.  i6i 

But,  before  they  begin  to  dig,  the  boys 
fling  themselves  down  on  the  ice,  even 
flattening  their  noses  hard  against  it,  so 
as  to  bring  their  eyes  as  close  to  it  as 
possible.  From  some  peculiarity  in  the 
color  and  appearance  of  the  ice  they  can 
judge  as  to  there  being  water  underneath 
it,  for  there  is  nothing  more  disappoint- 
ing, after  having  dug  the  well  five  or  six 
feet  down,  to  find  lumps  of  it  coming  up 
full  of  mud  or  sand,  showing  that  the 
bottom  is  dry.  The  boys,  however,  sel- 
dom make  a  mistake  in  their  observa- 
tions, although  now  and  then  they  will 
get  **  fooled"  about  it,  and  will  find  that 
they  have  spent  a  quarter  of  an  hour's 
hard  work  for  nothing. 

The  deeper  the  snow  has  drifted  on 
the  ice  the  thinner  the  ice  will  be,  as  the 
snow  protects  it  during  the  intense  cold, 


l62  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

just  as  in  our  climate  the  deep  SaOw 
protects  the  delicate  plants  on  the 
ground,  and  keeps  them  from  being 
killed  by  the  coldest  weather.  And  as 
it  is  so  much  easier  to  shovel  off  the 
soft  snow  than  to  dig  through  the  hard 
ice,  the  boys  always  look  for  a  deep 
snow-drift  very  near  to  the  spot  where 
they  have  peered  through  the  ice  and 
seen  clear  water  beneath.  If  they  can 
get  near  a  crack  that  extends  entirely 
through  the  ice,  it  will  also  make  it  much 
easier  to  dig  the  well,  as  one  side  is  thus 
already  prepared  for  them. 

Having  selected  as  favorable  a  place 
as  possible,  they  commence  their  dig- 
ging. The  first  instrument  used  is  noth- 
ing more  than  a  chisel,  a  bayonet,  or  a 
sharpened  piec<»>  of  iron,  lashed  on  the 
end  of  a  pole   ^^en  or  twelve  feet  long. 


WAITING   FOR  THE  RETURN  OF  THE  SEAL 


i      FISHIiVG.  163 

With  this  they  cut  a  circular  hole  In  the 
Ice  of  about  two  feet  In  diameter,  and  a 
foot  deep.  Then,  when  It  becomes  diffi- 
cult to  use  the  Ice-chisel,  they  scoop  out 
the  accumulated  pulverized  Ice  with  thin 
ladles  made  from  musk-ox  horn,  of  which 
I  told  you  In  a  former  chapter.  One  of 
these  ladles  Is  also  lashed  to  a  long  pole, 
and  Is  used  to  dip  the  cut  Ice  out  of  the 
well.  And  so  the  boys  work  away  at 
their,  well,  first  cutting  down  a  foot  or  so 
with  their  Ice-chisels,  and  then  scooping 
,  it  out  with  their  ladles,  then  cutting 
again,  then  scooping,  until  finally  they 
have  bored  clear  through,  and  the  fresh 
water  comes  rushing  up  to  the  top,  and 
all  the  thirsty  people  in  camp,  who 
have  had  no  water  all  day — as  well 
as  the  dogs,  which  are  equally  thirsty 
— get   a   good    drink,    and-  have   plenty 


164  THE   CHILDREN  OF  THE  COLD. 

of  water  with  which  to  prepare  sup- 
per. 

If  the  boys  had  not  been  successful  in 
finding  water,  the  girls  would  be  obliged 
to  collect  a  lot  of  ice  or  snow  and  melt 
it  in  stone  kettles  over  the  igloo  lamps, 
and  at  least  an  hour  would  be  wasted 
before  their  hot  supper  would  be  ready — 
and  that  is  quite  a  serious  affair,  as  in 
that  terribly  cold  country  people  want 
their  supper  just  as  soon  as  it  can  be 
made.  Besides  this,  a  great  deal  of  oil 
would  have  to  be  used  in  melting  the  ice 
and  snow,  and  oil  is  very  precious. 

In  digging  the  ice-well  the  boys  are 
careful  to  keep  the  hole  the  same  diame- 
ter away  down  to  the  water,  especially 
when  they  come  near  the  bottom,  for  if 
there  are  any  fish  in  the  lake  or  river 
they  will  try  to  catch  them  through  this 


FISHING,  165 

hole  in  the  Ice.  Most  of  the  lakes  and 
rivers  of  the  Arctic  regions  of  North 
America  are  full  of  delicious  salmon,  and 
the  poor  Eskimo  who  have  to  eat  so 
much  fishy  seal  meat  and  strong-tasting 
walrus  flesh,  appreciate  these  fine  salmon 
much  more  than  do  we,  with  our  great 
variety  of  food.  Their  fish-lines  are 
made  of  reindeer  sinew,  and  are  much 
stronger  than  are  our  lines.  The  fish- 
hooks are  simply  bent  pieces  of  sharp- 
ened iron  or  copper,  and  as  they  are  not 
barbed  at  the  end,  the  native  fisherman 
has  to  pull  in  very  fast  when  he  hooks 
his  fish,  or  he  will  lose  it,  as  every  boy 
knows  who  has  fished  with  a  pin-hook. 

If  a  lake  is  well  stocked  with  fish,  the 
natives  will  often  camp  by  it  for  two  or 
three  days  and  dig  a  number  of  holes,  so 
that  the  women,  and  every  boy  and  girl 


1 66  THE   CHILDREN   OF   THE    COLD. 

as  well,  can  be  busy  catching  salmon 
while  the  hunters  are  roaming  over  the 
hills  looking  for  reindeer  and  musk-oxen. 
Here  they  will  sit,  on  a  couple  of  snow- 
blocks,  nearly  all  day  long,  holding  the 
hook  a  couple  of  feet  below  the  ice,  and 
bobbing  it  continually  to  attract  the  no- 
tice of  the  fish.  Sometimes  they  attach 
small,  polished  ivory  balls  near  the  hook, 
to  attract  the  fish,  which  seeing  them, 
from  a  long  distance,  dancing  up  and 
down  and  glistening  in  the  light,  at  once 
swim  up  and  try  to  eat  the  reindeer  bait 
on  the  bent  hook,  to  their  certain  and 
speedy  disgust.  As  a  protection  from 
the  wind,  the  young  fishers  often  build  a 
sort  of  half  igloo,  and  shelter  themselves 
behind  it.  This  also  serves  as  a  place  to 
hide  the  fish  that  are  caught ;  for  there 
are  always  a  crowd  of  half-starved  dogs 


FISHING.  169 

sneaking  about,  trying  by  hook  or  crook 
to  steal  a  fish. 

But  this  is  not  the  only  way  that  the 
Eskimo  boys  and  girls  have  of  catching 
fish.  In  the  spring  of  their  year,  about 
the  middle  of  our  summer  time,  when 
the  ice  is  breaking  up  and  running  out 
of  their  rivers,  they  catch  fish  in  great 
quantities  at  the  rapids  in  the  rivers, 
and  store  them  away  for  use  in  the 
winter.  For  this  purpose  they  use  a 
curious  spiked  and  barbed  fish-spear, 
which  is  shown  in  the  illustration  on 
page   167. 

When  the  fish  are  very  numerous,  the 
men  and  women,  as  well  as  the  boys  and 
girls,  manage  to  get  a  footing  on  some 
rock  in  the  rapids,  where  they  can  stand 
easily,  and,  as  the  fish  rush  by,  they  im- 
pale  them    on    these   spears  until   great 


lyo  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

quantities  have  been  caught.  The  fish 
are  then  split  open,  and  spread  over 
double  rows  of  strings  stretched  from 
rock  to  rock.  Here  they  are  left  to  dry, 
though  in  the  cold,  short  Arctic  summer 
the  fish  only  become  about  half  as  well 
dried,  as  they  would  in  our  climate. 
These  dried  fish  are  then  stored  in  seal- 
skin bags  and  kept  for  future  use ;  a 
great  many  are  fed  to  the  dogs  to  put 
tnem  in  g^ood  condition  for  the  winter. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

HOW   THEIR   CLOTHES   ARE   MADE. 

^T7HEN  the  reindeer  have  been  killed, 
*  '  their  skins  are  stretched  on  the 
ground  to  dry,  with  the  hairy  side  down, 
and  although  they  may  freeze  as  stiff  as  a 
board,  in  the  course  of  a  week  or  two  the 
water  will  dry  out  of  them.  These  skins 
are  then  taken  and  put  through  a  pro- 
cess by  means  of  which  they  are  made  as 
nice  and  soft  as  a  piece  of  buckskin  or 
chamois-skin — or,  if  it  be  a  fawn  rein- 
deer, as  soft   as   piece   of   kid.     This  is 


172  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

done  by  scraping  them  with  a  peculiarly 
shaped  instrument  which  tears  off  all  the 
flesh  that  may  have  adhered,  and  scrapes 
away  the  inner  thick  skin  that  makes  the 
hide  so  stiff  and  unpliable.  When  the 
skins  are  thick  and  heavy,  the  men  do 
the  work,  for  it  is  then  very  difficult ;  but 
otherwise  the  women,  and  very  often  the 
little  girls,  scrape  the  skins  and  give  the 
finishing  touches,  and  then  make  them 
up  into  coats,  dresses,  stockings,  slippers, 
and  all  sorts  of  clothing. 

For  cutting  these  reindeer  skins  into 
shapes  for  garments,  a  very  queer  kind 
of  scissors  is  used.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  kind 
of  knife,  and  an  odd  knife  at  that.  It 
looks  very  much  like  the  knife  that  is 
used  by  saddlers  and  harness-makers; 
and  when  it  is  used  in  cutting,  it  is  always 
shoved  away  from  the  person  using   it. 


HOW    THEIR   CLOTHES  ARE  MADE.      173 

This  knife  Is  used  for  every  thing  that  is 
to  be  done  In  the  way  of  cutting,  from 
seal  and  reindeer  skin  to  the  thinnest 
and  most  fragile  strings.  At  meals,  too, 
some  one  will  put  to  his  mouth  a  great 
piece  of  blubber  or  fish  as  big  as  your 
fist,  seize  as  much  as  he  can  with  his 
teeth,  grasp  the  rest  in  his  hand,  and  cut 
off  a  huge  mouthful  with  this  knife.  If 
you  were  watching  him,  you  would  feel 
certain  that  he  would  slice  off  his  nose  in 
this  awkward  movement,  but  the  Eskimo 
are  so  very  dextrous  that  there  is  not 
the  slightest  danger  of  such  an  accident. 
When  the  reindeer  skins  have  been 
dressed,  and  made  up  into  garments,  and 
these  have  been  put  on — girls  and  boys, 
men  and  women,  are  dressed  so  nearly 
alike  that  at  any  considerable  distance 
you  can  not  tell  them  apart. 


174  ^^^  CHILDREN  OF  THE   COLD. 

The  Eskimo  girl  wears  a  long  apron. 
And  just  over  her  shoulders  her  coat- 
sleeves  swell  out  into  large  pockets  ;  and 
in  her  stockings,  just  above  the  outer 
part  of  the  ankles,  she  also  has  pockets, 
in  which  she  keeps  her  sewing,  moss  for 
lamp-wicking,  a  roll  of  sinew  for  thread, 
and  any  other  similar  article  that  she 
may  need  to  carry  with  her. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

FOUR    ESKIMO    CHILDREN. 

T"^HE  four  Eskimo  children  with  whom 
-*•  I  became  best  acquainted  during 
my  Arctic  trip  were  in  my  sledge-party 
in  a  journey  from  North  Hudson's  Bay 
to  King  William's  Land  and  back  again, 
which  occupied  nearly  a  year.  Their 
names  were  Ah-wan-ak,  Koo-man-ah, 
I-yawk-a-wak,  and  Kood-le-uk. 

Ahwanak  was  a  boy  of  about  fourteen 
or  fifteen,  Koomanah  a  boy  of  from 
twelve  to   thirteen,    lyawkawak  was   my 


176  THE   CHILDREN   OF   THE   COLD. 

driver's  little  two-year-old  baby  boy,  and 
Koodleuk  was  a  bright  little  three-year- 
old  girl.  Ahwanak  and  Koomanah,  of 
course,  were  good-sized  boys,  and  able 
to  do  considerable  work  for  us,  on  even 
so  hard  a  trip  as  was  ours.  These  boys 
walked  nearly  the  entire  distance,  but 
the  babies  lyawkawak  and  Koodleuk, 
when  they  were  not  in  their  mothers' 
hoods,  always  rode  on  the  sledges  that 
their  fathers  managed.  Their  place  upon 
the  sledges  was  near  the  front  of  the 
loads,  close  to  their  fathers,  who,  as  dog- 
drivers,  managed  their  sledges  from  this 
place,  and  could  thus  easily  watch  their 
little  children,  and  see  that  they  did  not 
tumble  off  when  riding  over  rough  or 
steep  places. 

In  lashing  on  the  loads,  a  nice  sort  of 
a   place  would  be  fixed,  where   the  two 


FOUR  ESKIMO  CHILDREN.  179 

babies  could  cuddle  in  and  rest  as  com- 
fortably as  if  they  were  in  a  baby-car- 
riage. Here  they  would  ride  nearly  the 
whole  day,  excepting  at  such  time  as 
their  mothers  would  take  them  into  their 
hoods  ;  and  despite  the  bumpings  of  the 
sledge  or  the  raw  cold  weather,  they 
would  be  pleasant  and  jolly  enough  to 
make  a  civilized  baby  ashamed  of  itself. 
Sometimes,  however,  the  babies  would 
cry  with  the  cold,  and  have  to  be  put 
in  their  mothers'  warm  hoods  to  keep 
them  from  freezing;  but  the  amount  of 
cold  they  would  stand  without  complain- 
ing was  really  remarkable.  And,  not- 
withstanding the  bitter  exposure  they 
undergo,  such  a  thing  as  a  *'cold"  is 
almost  unknown  among  Eskimo  chil- 
dren. 

Every  hour  or  two,  according  as  the 


i8o  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

pulling  was  hard  or  the  load  heavy,  the 
sledge  would  stop  for  ten  or  fifteen 
minutes  to  give  the  dogs  and  every  one 
else  a  good  rest.  The  two  babies  would 
then  be  taken  from  the  sledge,  and 
allowed  to  run  about  and  exercise  until 
the  sledge  would  start  again. 

However  much  they  might  tumble  over 
the  hard  snow,  there  was  but  little  dan- 
ger of  their  hurting  themselves,  so  heav- 
ily were  they  clothed  in  their  dresses  of 
reindeer  skin,  looking  for  all  the  world, 
like  great  big  balls  of  fur  running  about. 
After  the  party  had  gone  into  camp,  the 
little  babies  played  about  among  the 
sleeping  dogs  or  whatever  attracted  their 
attention,  until  the  reindeer  bedding  was 
arranged  Inside  the  igloo,  when  the  little 
people  were  undressed  and  put  to  bed. 

After  the  lamp  has  been  burning  until 


FO  UR  ESKIMO  CHILDREN.  1 8 1 

the  small  snow  house  is  about  as  warm  as 
is  advisable,  the  babies  crawl  out  and 
play  about  on  the  bed.  lyawkawak 
and  Koodleuk  had  such  unpronounceable 
names  that  they  were  hard  to  remember ; 
and  so  the  men  of  our  party  called  the 
boy  "Jack,"  and  the  girl  "Rosy,"  on 
account  of  her  rosy  red  cheeks.  Most 
of  the  Eskimo  children  have  red  cheeks, 
despite  the  dark  hue  of  their  faces,  and 
though  they  are  rarely  free  from  dirt. 
Yet,  the  children's  faces  are  generally 
neater  than  those  of  the  "grown-up" 
people,  many  of  whom  look  really  hor- 
rible, as  they  never  wash  their  faces. 

The  wives  of  Toolooah  and  Ikquiesek 
both  were  very  particular  with  their  chil- 
dren, and  little  "Jack"  and  "Rosy" 
were  as  neat  Eskimo  children  as  you 
could  possibly  find. 


1 82  THE   CHILDREN  OF  THE   COLD. 

The  two  boys,  Ahwanak  and  Koo- 
manah,  had  a  great  deal  of  work  to  do 
about  the  camp,  much  of  which  has 
already  been  described  in  former  chapters. 
They  had  been  through  some  curious 
adventures  even  before  I  met  them. 

At  one  time,  when  he  was  about  ten 
years  eld,  Koomanah  was  walking,  with 
his  little  sister  and  brother,  on  the  salt- 
water ice  that  forms  for  two  or  three 
miles  wide  along  the  shores  of  Hudson's 
Bay,  when  they  were  greatly  terrified  to 
find  that  the  great  field  of  ice  on  which 
they  were  walking  had  separated  from 
the  firm  shore-ice,  and  was  drifting  out 
to  sea.  A  great  lane  of  water  which 
lay  between  them  and  their  homes  was 
every  minute  growing  wider;  and  worse 
than  all,  a  storm  was  coming  up,  which 
would   make    it    still    harder   to    escape. 


FOUR  ESKIMO  CHILDREN.  183 

Before  long,  their  situation  became 
known,  and  many  a  brave  man  started 
out  in  the  rough  waters  in  his  little  frail 
seal-skin  canoe,  or  kiaky  to  do  his  best 
to  rescue  the  children.  In  a  little  while, 
Koomanah  saw  their  rescuers ;  but  the 
storm  had  made  the  waves  so  heavy  that 
the  edges  of  the  ice-field  were  broken 
into  a  thousand  floating  cakes,  many 
of  them  as  big  as  small  houses,  which 
turned  and  tumbled  over  one  another 
in  a  way  to  appall  even  the  stoutest 
heart.  But  brave  young  Koomanah  was 
equal  to  the  emergency,  and,  fearful  as 
it  seemed,  he  knew  he  must  cross  that 
wide  space  of  rolling,  heaving,  tumbling 
blocks  of  ice  before  he  could  reach  the 
skin  canoes  of  the  rescuers,  who,  of 
course,  picked  out  the  best  place  possible 
to  accomplish  their  daring  attempts. 


1 84  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

At  last,  Koomanah  found  a  suitable 
place,  and  taking  advantage  of  an  ap- 
parent lull  in  the  storm,  without  hesita- 
tion he  started  across  the  pack  with  his 
brother's  and  sister's  hands  in  his  ;  and 
knowing  that  their  lives  depended  on 
his  judgment,  he  carefully  picked  his 
way  from  block  to  block.  A  dozen 
times,  either  he  or  the  children  slipped 
on  the  dancing  ice,  and  once  a  great 
block  near  them  rolled  completely  over, 
deluging  them  with  w^ater  and  blinding 
Koomanah  with  the  spray.  Recovering 
himself,  he  still  splashed  and  struggled 
on  like  a  little  hero.  At  last  one  block, 
on  which  they  stopped  a  moment,  tilted 
on  its  side,  and  threw  them  in  a  heap. 
Here  one  of  the  little  children  was 
crushed  between  two  great  grinding 
cakes  of  ice,   and  sunk  out  of  sight  in 


FOUR  ESKIMO  CHILDREN.  185 

the  tossing,  foaming  water.  Koomanah 
grasped  the  other  child  in  his  arms,  and, 
staggering  and  plunging  over  the  ice, 
the  tossing  and  turning  of  which  grew 
worse  as  he  neared  its  outer  edge,  he- 
managed  to  throw  the  baby  he  had  saved 
close  to  a  /^/^>^,  and  then  threw  himself 
after  it.  Both  were  picked  up  and  were 
soon  safe  in  their  home,  which,  though 
made  desolate  by  the  loss  of  one  little 
one,  had  still  two  left,  one  of  whom 
would  be  acknowledged  as  a  little  hero 
the  world  over. 

Ahwanak's  adventure  was  even  more 
exciting,  though  he  had  no  little  children 
m  his  charge. 

He  had  gone  with  his  big  brother 
Iquiesek  and  with  Nannook,  a  splendid 
hunter  of  the  village,  on  a  walrus  hunt. 
The  three  were  caught  on  an  ice-floe,  or 


1 86  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE  COLD. 

solid  field  of  ice,  which  suddenly  separ- 
ated, and  the  piece  on  which  they  stood 
was  blown  straight  out  to  sea.  It  sailed 
on  until,  in  the  drifting  storm,  nothing 
was  seen  but  the  waters  of  the  bay  that 
surrounded  them,  and  all  hope  of  seeing 
land  until  the  gale  subsided  was  given  up. 
Besides  the  two  men  and  Ahwanak, 
there  were  a  sledge  and  four  or  five  dogs 
on  the  ice-raft.  Taking  things  rather 
coolly,  after  they  had  recovered  from 
their  surprise  and  disappointment,  they 
went  to  work  and  built  a  good  strong 
igloo  to  protect  them  from  the  storm. 
Presently  a  walrus  crawled  up  to  ride  on 
their  ship  of  ice ;  they  killed  it,  and, 
dragging  its  carcass  up  to  their  snow 
house,  made  a  lamp  out  of  the  thick 
hide,  prepared  some  lamp-wicking  from 
pieces  of  cloth,  cut  a  quantity  of  blubber 


FOUR  ESKIMO  CHILD REJ^.  187 

from  the  walrus,  and  in  a  little  while  had 
their  zgloo  about  as  warm  as  one  regu- 
larly constructed  on  the  land,  and  had, 
at  the  same  time,  plenty  of  meat  for 
themselves  and  their  few  dogs.  If  they 
had  only  been  provided  with  bedding, 
they  could  have  safely  remained  on  the 
island  of  ice  all  winter,  so  far  as  any  fear 
of  starvation  was  concerned.  As  it  was, 
they  drew  their  arms  out  of  their  coat 
sleeves,  and  went  to  sleep  in  their  clothes, 
as  do  all  Eskimo  when  without  bedding. 
F'or  two  days  the  storm  raged.  They 
seldom  ventured  out,  and  could  not  tell 
which  way  they  were  drifting.  On  the 
third  day,  however,  the  storm  cleared  up, 
the  long  sledge  was  placed  against  the 
snow  house,  and  from  its  topmost  slat 
Ahwanak  scanned  the  horizon  for  sorne 
sign  of  land,  or  something  by  which  they 


1 88  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD, 

might  tell  where  they  were.  In  the 
course  of  the  day  the  prisoners  on  the 
ice-raft  sighted  on  the  horizon  the  bold 
headland  of  Poillon  Point,  and  by  night- 
time the  tide  and  current  had  set  them 
in  so  close  to  the  land  that  they  were 
able  to  reach  the  firm  ice  along-shore, 
where  they  soon  hitched  up  their  dogs 
and  rode  home  as  fast  as  they  could  over 
twenty  miles  that  intervened — greatly 
astonishing  and  delighting  their  anxious 
friends.     These  driftincrs  out    to  sea  on 

o 

great  cakes  of  ice,  however,  ace  rather 
common  adventures,  and  nearly  every 
hunter  has  had  one  or  two  such  experi- 
ences in  his  life-time. 

But  to  return  to  Ahwanak  and  Koo- 
manah.  When  we  left  our  morning's 
camp  for  our  day's  journey,  the  two  boys 
would  walk  along,  with  but  little  to  do ; 


FOUR  ESKIMO  CHILDREN.  191 

but  if  reindeer  were  seen  grazing  on  the 
distant  hills,  Ahwanak  and  Koomanah 
would  take  charge  of  two  of  the  sledges, 
while  the  men  seized  their  guns  and  tried 
to  kill  some  of  the  deer.  If  the  reindeer 
were  directly  in  our  path,  the  dogs  and 
sledges  halted,  and  the  two  boys  had 
only  to  stand  guard  ;  but  if  they  were  off 
our  track,  then  the  sledges  kept  on  their 
way,  some  man  taking  the  foremost 
sledge,  and  the  boys  easily  driving  the 
dogs,  which  very  willingly  follow  a 
sledge-track  in  front  of  them.  In  case 
the  party  halted,  the  boys  would  watch 
the  hunters  from  the  top  of  a  loaded 
sledge,  and  if  they  saw  one  come  to  the 
top  of  a  ridge  or  on  a  hill,  and  with  one 
arm  extended,  swing  his  body  from  a 
perpendicular  nearly  to  the  ground,  they 
knew  a  reindeer  had  been  killed,  and  that 


192  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

two  or  three  dogs  were  needed  to  drag 
off  the  body.  Then  they  would  unhitch 
these  from  the  team,  and  take  them  over 
to  the  hunter,  who  would  fasten  their 
traces  around  the  reindeer's  horns,  and 
drag  it  to  the  sledge.  Occasionally  the 
two  boys  would  try  a  reindeer  hunt  on 
their  own  hook,  and  although  they  w^ere 
seldom  successful,  not  daring  to  frighten 
the  deer  from  the  men  who  were  better 
hunters,  yet  once  in  awhile  they  were 
rewarded,  and  then  their  eyes  would 
fairly  glisten  with  joy  and  pride. 

Colonel  Gilder,  of  our  party,  was  very 
kind  to  little  Koomanah,  and  becoming 
tired  of  carrying  his  revolver,  he  took  off 
the  ordinary  wooden  pistol-butt  and  put 
in  a  longer  one,  more  like  a  gun- 
stock,  and  roughly  made  of  w^alnut.  He 
let    Koomanah    use   this   dwarf   gun,  as 


FOUR  ESKIMO  CHILDREN.  193 

the  boy  could  easily  fire  it  from  his 
shoulder.  This,  of  course,  increased  its 
accuracy  of  aim,  as  it  could  be  held  much 
steadier.  It  held  six  cartridges,  and 
could,  therefore,  be  fired  six  times  with- 
out reloading.  As  so  wonderful  a  gun 
in  so  young  a  person's  possession  was 
never  before  known  among  these  simple 
people,  Koomanah  was  greatly  elevated 
in  their  estimation,  and  felt  very  proud 
and  elated  over  his  fine  weapon. 

As  I  have  said,  the  two  boys  seldom 
interfered  with  the  hunting  of  the  men, 
and  when  they  took  their  guns  (for  Ah- 
wanak  had  a  musket  that  he  greatly 
prized)  and  went  away  from  the  sledges, 
it  was  nearly  always  to  get  far  to  the 
right  or  left  and  hide  behind  some  ridge. 
Here  they  would  wait  to  see  if  the  rein- 
deer ran  in  that  direction  after  the  men 


194  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

had  fired  at  them,  in  which  case  they 
might  get  a  running  shot  as  they  passed. 
The  farther  north  we  penetrated,  the 
more  stupid  were  the  reindeer ;  and  hav- 
ing never  before  heard  a  shot  fired,  they 
would  run  about  in  a  frightened  and 
aimless  way,  thus  giving  the  boys  a  much 
better  chance  at  them. 

One  day,  while  going  through  a  nar- 
row valley  between  steep  hills,  reindeer 
were  reported  ahead.  The  sledges  were 
stopped,  and  the  hunters  with  their  guns 
went  on  to  try  to  kill  some  ;  Koomanah 
and  Ahwanak  following  slowly  behind 
with  their  guns  to  see  if  they  could  pos- 
sibly get  a  shot.  Seeing  a  small  break 
or  pass  in  the  steep  hills  to  their  left,  the 
boys  entered  it  to  go  into  the  next  val- 
ley, hoping  the  deer  might  cross  their 
path.     They  were  nearly  through,  when 


FOUR  ESKIMO  CHILDREN.  ip^ 

they  heard  shots,  and,  keeping  a  short 
distance  apart,  they  concealed  them- 
selves as  well  as  they  could  by  lying 
behind  some  stones,  and  awaited  results. 

The  reindeer,  frightened  by  the  rapid 
shooting,  broke  in  a  circle  around  the 
hunters,  and  were  rushing  down  the  val- 
ley, when  they  saw  the  dogs  and  sledges. 
Quick  as  a  flash,  they  turned  up  the  pass 
the  boys  had  entered.  When  the  deer 
came  trotting  along,  and  were  with- 
in about  a  hundred  yards  of  Kooma- 
nah,  they  turned  suddenly  around  and 
stopped,  and,  with  eyes  dilating  and  ears 
pricked  up,  they  looked  backward 
through  the  pass,  watching  for  danger, 
but  never  dreaming  of  that  directly 
ahead  of  them  in  the  shape  of  two 
small  boys. 

This    stoppage     gave     Koomanah    a 


1 


196  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

Splendid  shot,  but  a  long  one  ;  and  with 
his  heart  in  his  mouth  for  fear  of  miss- 
ing, he  took  a  broadside  aim  at  a  big 
buck,  over  the  stone  behind  which  he 
was  hidden.  ''Bang!"  went  Kooma- 
nah's  pistol-gun,  and  away  went  the  deer 
like  arrows.  But  they  had  not  gone  a 
score  of  yards  before  the  big  buck  com- 
menced to  stumble,  and  in  a  little  while 
rolled  over  on  its  side  and  commenced 
kicking  in  the  air.  Koomanah's  shot 
had  been  much  better  than  he  thought 
when  he  saw  them  all  start  away 
together.  Of  course  Koomanah  had  a 
right  to  be  proud  now  over  this  big  rein- 
deer, that  would  have  taken  a  half  a 
dozen  bo)'s  of  his  size  to  pack  into  camp, 
and  he  was  highly  praised  for  his  sports- 
manship. 

During     the    whole    trip    Koomanah 


FOUR  ESKIMO  CHILDREN.  199 

killed  ten  reindeer  and  Ahwanak  six. 
There  were  two  shot-guns  with  the 
party,  and  as  none  of  the  hunters 
seemed  to  monopolize  the  smaller  game 
as  they  did  the  reindeer  and  seal,  the  two 
boys  had  great  sport  with  the  small 
game,  and  we  were  constantly  regaled 
with  the  ducks,  geese  and  ptarmigan  that 
they  brought  in. 

One  of  the  special  duties  of  the  boys 
was  to  look  after  duck-eggs  when  in 
season.  At  this  they  were  very  suc- 
cessful, for  during  the  summer  the  eider- 
ducks  swarm  in  countless  numbers  to  the 
island  of  King  William's  Land,  where 
they  hatch  and  rear  their  young  dis- 
turbed by  but  few  of  their  enemies — the 
wolves,  wolverines,  and  foxes.  Many  a 
nice  dish  of  eggs  did  we  have  through 
the  vigilance  and  energy  of   Koomanah 


200  THE   CHILDREN  OF    THE   COLD. 

and  Ahwanak.  As  we  were  then  living 
on  nothing  but  seal  and  reindeer  meat, 
these  eggs  were  considered  a  great  luxury. 
After  the  small  ducks  had  grown  large 
enough  to  be  eatable,  the  two  boys  killed 
a  great  number — Ahwanak  securing  over 
fifty  in  one  day.  The  Eskimo  boys  are 
excellent  stone-throwers.  It  is  no  un- 
common thing  for  them  to  kill  a  ptar- 
migan or  a  duck  in  this  manner,  as  well 
as  the  little  ground-squirrel  (or  marmot), 
common  in  that  country,  and  bring  it  in 
to  be  eaten.  As  is  the  case  with  most 
savages,  the  Eskimo  children  have  few 
pets,  as  they  have  no  way  to  take  care  of 
them. 

Thus  far,  all  that  I  have  said  has,  I  am 
glad  to  say,  been  wholly  in  favor  of  our 
two  boys  ;  but  they  had  one  bad  habit 
for  folk  so  young,  although  it  is  a  habit 


FOUR  ESKIMO  CHILDREN.  201 

which  is  common  among  the  young  Es- 
kimo. This  is  smoking.  As  soon  as 
they  can  learn  to  draw  a  pipe,  they  be- 
gin ;  and  both  men  and  women  smoke, 
although  the  boys  and  women  generally 
smoke  a  weed  that  grows  in  the  Arctic 
country,  and  is  not  nearly  so  strong  nor 
disagreeable  as  tobacco. 

After  Koomanah  and  Ahwanak  re- 
turned to  the  northern  part  of  Hudson's 
Bay  at  the  close  of  our  year's  sledge-trip, 
they  were  given  the  guns  they  had  so 
well  earned,  and  ammunition  for  them 
also. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

HOW    WE    PASSED    THE    WINTER. 

TlfE  have  spoken  of  all  the  games  and 
'  '  sports,  the  troubles  and  labors  of 
the  little  ones  of  far-away  Eskimo  land, 
and  even  chronicled  some  of  the  doings 
of  the  small  boys  who  had  had  interest- 
ing adventures  of  their  own,  and  now, 
I  suppose,  you  might  like  to  hear  how 
we  white  men  lived  in  the  Arctic  regions, 
when  with  all  these  Eskimo  people  and 
their  children,  and,  especially,  how  we 
passed  the  winter  with  them. 


HOW  WE  PASSED    THE   WINTER.         203 

I  have  already  told  you  how  they 
built  their  curious  little  houses  of  snow 
for  winter  dwellings,  and  how  much  they 
looked  like  the  half  of  a  huge  egg-shell 
resting  on  the  side  of  a  hill  covered  with 
snow.  Now,  in  order  to  make  these 
houses  of  snow — igloos y  as  the  makers 
call  them — the  snow  must  be  of  a  certain 
hardness  and  texture,  so  that  the  blocks 
— or  huge  snow-bricks,  if  you  would  yo 
call  them — will  hold  together  when  hand- 
ling them,  and  after  they  are  in  the  walls 
of  the  white  building.  It  must  have 
been  quite  cold  so  as  to  freeze  the  snow 
into  a  sort  of  homogeneous  mass,  and 
it  must  have  been  packed  down  by  the 
wind  a  good  deal  to  make  it  compact 
and  solid.  The  first  snow  of  the  coming 
winter  does  not  make  good  strong  snow- 
blocks   for   the   igloos,  however   deep    it 


204  ^'^^    CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

may  fall,  and  from  the  time  there  is 
enough  of  it,  the  Eskimo  often  have  to 
wait  three  or  four  weeks  before  it  is  fit 
for  building.  As  it  gets  too  cold  in  their 
summer  seal-skin  tents  before  this  time 
comes,  the  natives  generally  build  pre- 
liminary houses  of  ice,  which,  singular 
as  it  may  seem,  .are  much  warmer  than 
the  tents,  but  not  as  comfortable  as  the 
houses  of  snow.  When  the  ice  has 
formed  to  about  six  inches  in  thickness 
on  some  lake  close  by,  they  cut  out  their 
big  slabs  of  ice  for  the  sides  of  the 
house.  Imagine  an  ordinary-sized  house- 
door  to  be  a  slab  of  ice  about  six  inches 
thick  ;  then  take  a  half-dozen  to  a  dozen 
of  these  doors,  and  place  them  in  a  cir- 
cle, joining  them  edge  to  edge,  but  lean 
ing  in  slightly,  and  you  will  have  formed 
your   curious    house    of    ice.     Over  this 


HOW    IVE  PASSED    THE    WINTER.        205 

circular  pen  of  ice  —  which  you  can 
imitate  on  a  small  scale  with  a  circu- 
lar row  of  upright  dominoes  on  their 
ends  and  joined  edge  to  edge — the  sum- 
mer seal-skin  tent  is  lashed  across  poles 
for  a  roof,  and  the  ice-house  is  complete. 
By  and  by,  this  roof,  sagging  with  snow, 
may  be  taken  off  and  a  dome  of  snow 
put  on,  which  gives  more  height  and 
consequently  more  comfort.  Bancioff libraty 

In  our  first  winter  camp  in  North  Hud- 
son's Bay,  the  houses  were  made  of  these 
ice-slabs  in  the  manner  just  described, 
and  surmounted  by  a  dome  of  snow. 
They  were  supplied  with  little  circular 
windows,  also  made  of  thin  sheets  of 
ice,  which  let  in  the  light  quite  as  well  as 
our  own  at  home,  although  not  nearly  so 
much  light,  because  they  are  very  much 
smaller  than  our  windows. 


2o6  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

Before  these  houses  get  covered  inside 
with  the  black  soot  from  the  burning 
lamps,  and  before  the  snow  outside  has 
drifted  up  level  with  the  roof,  a  night 
scene  in  a  village  of  ice,  and  especially  if 
the  village  be  a  large  one  and  all  the 
lamps  be  burning  brilliantly,  is  one  of 
the  prettiest  views  a  stranger  can  find  in 
that  desolate  land.  If  you  could  behold 
a  village  of  cabins  suddenly  transformed 
into  houses  of  glass,  and  filled  with  burn- 
ing lamps,  it  might  represent  an  Eskimo 

ice-village  at  night. 

When  our  house  was  finished  we 
took  our  summer  tent,  and,  pitching  it 
right  against  our  house,  used  it  as  a 
storage-room.  Here  we  put  our  pro- 
visions, our  barrels  of  bread  and  mo- 
lasses; and  one  story  I  must  tell  you 
about  the  latter.     When  the  bitter  cold 


HOW    WE  PASSED    THE   WINTER.         207 

weather  came  on,  and  the  molasses  was 
frozen  as  hard  as  ice,  the  cook  used  to 
get  ours  in  the  same  way  that  he  would 
obtain  so  much  ice  ;  that  is,  he  took  a 
hatchet  and  chopped  out  lumps  of  it  from 
the  top  of  the  barrel,  and  brought  it  in 
and  put  it  over  the  fire,  where  it  soon 
melted,  so  that  we  could  use  it.  One 
day  he  left  the  hatchet  on  the  frozen 
'  syrup,  and  when  he  needed  it  a  few  hours 
latev,  it  was  gone.  Its  disappearance 
was  a  great  mystery,  as  the  Eskimo 
never  stole,  and  could  not  get  into  the 
tent  in  any  case.  The  mystery,  how- 
ever, was  cleared  up  the  next  day,  when 
an  iron  bar  with  which  he  had  been 
splintering  off  some  of  the  frozen  mass 
was  left  in  the  barrel,  and  we  found  that 
it  sank  in  the  frozen  syrup  until  only  the 
end  stuck  out.     And  when  we  had  cut  it 


2o8  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

all  put,  we  found  the  hatchet  below,  at 
the  bottom.  It  seemed  as  absurd  as  to 
leave  an  ax  on  a  frozen  lake  and  to  see 
It  slowly  sink  through  three  or  four  feet 
of  Ice  to  the  bottom. 

We  built  no  other  house  for  ourselves 
than  this  mixture  of  ice-walls  and  snow- 
roof,  though  all  the  Eskimo  built  regular 
igloos  of  snow  as  soon  as  that  material 
was  in  good  condition  ;  and  when  the 
bitter  days  of  winter  came  on  they  always 
complained  of  cold  when  they  came  into 
our  house. 

The  reason  why  we  did  not  build  a 
warmer  house  of  snow  was  that  we  had 
planned  to  leave  our  home  in  North  Hud- 
son's Bay,  and  to  pay  a  long  visit  to  some 
whale-ships  that  were  frozen  in  a  harbor 
about  a  hundred  miles  farther  south. 
There  were  four  of  these  ships  in  a  safe 


HOW  WE  PASSED    THE    WINTER.        209 

little  harbor  jutting  Into  the  shore  of  Mar- 
ble Island,  and  I  will  tell  you  the  way  in 
which  the  whalers  prepare  themselves  for 
their  stay  in  these  vessels  during  the  long 
Arctic  winter.  In  the  fall  of  the  year, 
just  before  it  gets  so  cold  that  the  Ice 
forms,  they  huddle  their  ships  together  as 
closely  as  possible,  and  each  ship  puts 
down  two  anchors,  one  at  the  bow  and  one 
at  the  stern,  and  these  hold  them  from 
striking  against  the  shore  or  one  another 
until  the  ice  forms  around  them  and  freezes 
them  In  solidly.  Then  the  anchors  and 
rudders  are  taken  up,  and,  with  lumber 
which  they  have  brought  from  home,  the 
whalers  build  a  rude  but  substantial  house 
over  the  ship.  After  that  has  been  com- 
pleted they  get  the  Eskimo  to  build  them  a 
sort  of  snow-house  or  igloo  over  the  wooden 
house  again  ;  so,  with  all  this  covering  to 


2iO  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE    COLD. 

protect  them,  they  manage  to  keep  warm 
and  comfortable  with  very  little  fire, 
however  cold  it  may  be  out-of-doors. 
Sometimes  they  put  in  double  windows, 
the  inside  ones  of  glass,  as  usual,  and  the 
outside  ones  being  made  of  slabs  of  ice, 
like  the  curious  windows  of  the  igloos. 
The  white  men  do  not  live  in  the 
temporary  houses  built  on  top  of  the 
ships,  but  in  the  cabin  and  forecastle, 
just  as  if  they  were  cruising  out  to  sea. 
The  house  is  simply  put  over  the  ship 
to  keep  the  real  places  warm,  and  right 
well  it  does  its  work.  This  "  house," 
however,  is  very  useful  as  a  place  for 
taking  exercise,  for  ship-carpentering, 
work,  and  for  any  small  jobs  that  may 
be  necessary.  The  Eskimo  also  congre- 
gate there,  especially  about  meal-time ; 
and   the    more    generous    whalers    feed 


HOW    WE   PASSED    THE    WINTER.         211 

them  with  a  little  hard  sea-bread  and 
weak  tea  well  sweetened  with  molasses, 
and  for  this  the  natives  supply  them  with 
reindeer  and  walrus  meat,  and  build  the 
snow-houses  over  their  ships. 

But  you  must  not  think  that  all  ships 
in  the  Arctic  winters  fare  so  well  as 
those  I  have  just  described.  The 
whalers  visit  the  polar  regions  nearly 
.  every  winter,  and  know  by  experience 
how  to  be  comfortable  when  there. 
Where  they  find  whales  they  almost 
always  find  Eskimo,  and  the  natives  are 
of  great  assistance  to  them,  as  I  have 
said.  Many  explorers,  however,  push 
beyond  these  limits,  and  we  are  con- 
stantly reading  of  their  useless  sufferings 
while  in  winter-quarters  from  not  know- 
ing how  to  properly  shield  and  maintain 
themselves. 


212  THE   CHILDREN  OF   THE   COLD. 

While  in  the  fall  the  whalers  patiently 
wait  for  the  ice  to  form,  so  as  to  house 
themselves  in,  they  do  not  in  the  spring 
wait  for  the  ice  to  melt  before  getting  to 
work  catching  whales  that  are  sporting 
on  the  outside  of  the  still  frozen  har- 
bors ;  so  they  cut  a  channel,  wide  enough 
for  the  ship,  through  the  ice  from  the 
open  water  to  alongside  the  vessel,  and 
she  is  then  floated  out.  In  the  harbor  at 
Marble  Island,  the  work  of  cutting  a 
channel  only  half  a  mile  long  occupied 
three  weeks,  each  crew  working  six 
hour,  night  and  day.  But,  as  you  proba- 
bly know  already,  the  night  is  as  light  as 
the  day,  in  the  Arctic  spring. 


